Gratitude

1. Morning walks. Not as many pictures because we are mostly staying in our neighborhood, walking towards City Park where there’s a big peaceful cemetery and a lake with pelicans and herons and baby geese.

2. (& 3.) Our garden (and poetry/books). With the cold we had in the final days of winter and all the rain we’ve had since, everything is so green (Eric stands at the back door and says he can see our grass growing) and our irises have SO many blooms this year. We are slowly working to prepare the ground to plant more flowers and vegetables and berries, which always feels like a particular kind of hope, reckless and wild.

I spent last weekend cleaning out my office, which had been neglected for a bit because so many other things needed my attention. The open space here now, the clearing, calls to me when I’m in other rooms, invites me in, gives me a place to be myself. There’s a jar full of white lilacs on my desk from our bushes out front and birds coming to the feeder at my window and the maple tree just outside my window in the backyard is dressed in leaves attached to branches where the birds sit and sing, did even before the leaves came (or after they left?).

As I cleaned up my office, I kept finding packages of seeds — two different packs from my friend Chloé and her garden, one “save the bees” bee friendly wildflower mix I got for free from Honey Nut Cheerios, a card that includes a heart shaped piece of paper embedded with seeds from the place we had Sam cremated (“plant in your garden and wildflowers will blossom in memory of your beloved pet”), and a pack of sunflower seeds from my dear friend Chelsey’s mom’s memorial (“gone but not forgotten — please plant these seeds in loving memory”).

I’m not sure what most of the seeds are, or if they’ll even germinate, but I’m going to put them in some dirt, give them some water, and see what happens. That feels like a kind of hope. I’m also going to add a new peony to my “loved ones lost” section of the garden, a yellow one for my “aunt” Rita, another reminder that grief is love gone wild, love that can still bloom, that is rooted, that you continue to tend for as long as it continues to come back, to keep growing and flowering.

I saw in my Facebook memories the other day a post I wrote that said, “gardeners know what it means to plant their heart in the ground” and then this morning I read a poem from the book How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope that started with the lines, “the heart of a farmer is made of muscle and clay that aches for return to the earth” (“Down to Earth” by James Crews), and then another that said “The first of a year’s abundance of dandelions is this single kernel of bright yellow dropped on our path by the sun, sensing that we might need some marker to help us find our way through life” (“Dandelion” by Ted Kooser), and finally “Couldn’t the yellowing leaves of the maple and their falling also be a sign of joy? Another kind of leaning into. A letting go of one thing to fall into another” (“Another Day Filled With Sleeves of Light” by Heather Swan).

4. The sky over our house. I will absolutely lie on my back in the grass watching the clouds drift — sometimes in delight, other times in despair.

5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. The way that both Eric and Ringo make me laugh. The comfort of them resting nearby. Cooking together, (yes, Ringo does “involve” himself). Sitting in the backyard or on the couch together, doing nothing. The way we three are always watching out for each other because we know we belong to each other.

Bonus joy: crossing things off a list, flowers in the bathroom (Eric knew I was sad, so on his way back home from a walk the other day, he stopped and got me flowers), rain, sunshine, cooking for someone, dark chocolate covered walnuts, all the different smells and colors of lilacs, peony tulips and peony poppies (did you know these exist?!), “black” flower varieties which are actually just the darkest deepest purple, good books, good TV (or even sometimes “bad” is good), listening to podcasts, a warm shower, clean sheets, glue stick, writing in the morning with a hot cup of green tea, meditation, how good it feels to stretch, reaching out and having people reach back, other people’s dogs, health insurance, being able to make appointments online, libraries, Ross Gay, Elyse Myers, Andrea Gibson, a new documentary on HBO about Donna Summer, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

1. Morning walks. As it is spring, three things are unfortunately true about taking a walk: you have to go out really early to catch the sunrise, this is our rainy season so you also have to closely watch the forecast and many days avoid the dirt (mud) trails, and it’s tick season (we just found the second one in two weeks on Ringo — so gross!). Other than that, they are still one of the best things.

2. Our garden. Just when I thought our irises weren’t going to do as well this year, I noticed an explosion of buds which will lead to so many blooms. All of my peonies are growing inches every day and also promise many flowers. My friend Janice gave us more raspberries plants and one day when they feel comfortable and settled in, we’ll have actual berries. In the next few weeks, we’ll do the real work of cleaning up and planting our vegetable garden. Everything is so green right now with all the rain. It all just makes me so happy.

3. Family group texts. I got added a couple of days ago to one updating everyone about my uncle’s recent hospital stay. My mom’s family had twelve kids and then there are various spouses and kids that have all kept in contact so it’s a lot of people to keep in the loop when something important happens. I didn’t have everyone’s numbers saved in my contacts and a lot of them didn’t have mine so it was hilarious watching us all try to simultaneously take part in the original conversation and figure out who the heck we were talking to. I’ve managed to get all but four of the numbers sorted and saved. I had to learn to not interrupt people as an adult, that not everyone had the same conversation style as my family. I wasn’t being rude (but people took it that way) it’s just that in my family to be able to say anything and be heard, you had to gauge when someone was just about finished and talk over the top of them. If you waited until they were done and quiet, it was too late because someone else would already be talking and you’d lost your chance.

4. Being alone at home. Sometimes I wish I were more social, more adventurous, more extroverted, but I am SO not. And really, at the end of the day, I’m okay with that.

5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. Four years ago today, when I was working my last week at CSU, I posted this on Facebook: “Went to my CSU office yesterday to bring home my plants and clear out most everything else. It felt so good taking that step. In my own often quiet way I’ve been planning this exit, dreaming of this letting go for almost ten years. I can trace it back to that awful year when both Obi and Kelly were diagnosed with cancer, and that next unbearable year when they both died. I looked at my life then and realized I wasn’t fully living what was true for me and vowed to change that. Mostly what I want to share is that real change often takes a lot of time and effort, and you don’t have to want or have a large, loud life. Having a small life that is wide and deep and quiet and slow is just as valid.” Still so true, maybe even more so.

Bonus joy: the weekend, dark chocolate covered walnuts, taco salad, finding both ticks on Ringo before they had been there long enough to do any damage, listening to podcasts, watching good TV and movies, making Eric laugh, cooking together, crows, other people’s dogs, credit card awards, a massage from Dana, making some progress on cleaning up my office, being able to do what I need for myself, curly hair, texting with my brother and mom, making art with Janice, checking in with Chloe’ and Mikalina and Chelsey, other people’s gardens, redbud trees, peony tulips (I need to get some of these), the farmer’s market, the food truck rally, being able to go to a movie theater again, trying new recipes, sitting in the backyard or on the couch with Eric and Ringo going nothing, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.