Thank you for days of rain.

Thank you for days of rain ending.

Thank you for roaring waterfalls.

Thank you for Peaches washing my hand.

Thank you for writing with paper and pencil.

Thank you for others sharing their routines to inspire healthy habits.

Thank you for couples in love who inspire hope.

Thank you for language being a code.

Thank you for helmets.

Thank you for time to meditate.

Thank you for Peaches cuddling up next to me.

Thank you for Paul Hawken’s recent work (Regeneration). Maybe I already mentioned it. There are lots of repeats here, but there’s lots of stuff I feel grateful for repeatedly. So it’s ok.

Thank you for Matthew Walker educating the public on sleep. He shares how adequate, quality sleep is crucial for psychological and physical well being. Thank you for how his talk on the RRP is inspiring me to sleep better (quality and quantity). Also it gave me a deeper appreciation for the magic of sleep and dreams. (I’m a sleep deprived WIP while writing this, ironically.)

Thank you for thriving forests.

Thank you for when we see past ourselves.

Thank you for our care and compassion for other beings and how that is part of our care and compassion for ourselves.

Thank you for cancel culture losing popularity. To cancel it would be to perpetuate it, so that won’t work. I guess it helps to gently encourage compassionate alternatives, and to model those alternatives through forgiveness, acceptance, and nurturing in one’s own life (attitudes, speech, behavior).

Thank you for circularity and closed loops.

Thank you for food to eat.

Thank you for frogs outside. I’m so happy to hear you. 

Thank you for ferns.

Thank you for a loving home, even if it’s just Peaches and plants and me.

Thank you for clean air.

Thank you for morning walk-jogs and chats with power couple C & J. Thank you for J sharing that he was at our lot after it burned (before we met). He liked or needed to stand on the fresh rubble to help process the tragedy that pervaded our community. As an HSP, he also said that he could feel what the people who had lived in those spots felt. Standing on our rubble, he told me there was a sense of sadness coming from older people. I wondered about that comment. I had always assumed that my dad is in a better place where suffering just doesn’t happen—that he’s beyond worldly concerns. J’s comment led me to question. If my dad and his family—lost aunts and uncles and grandparents, etc.—have insight into our suffering here on earth, do they then feel pain, too? Does my hurt cause my father’s spirit to grieve? The possibility of him feeling my pain has been a strong motivator to happiness. If I work through worries, if I cultivate a positive, joyous attitude, maybe the spirits of my dad and his family will feel heartened along with me.

Thank you for the kind, interesting, inspiring friends made since moving back home and for reconnections with old neighbors. They flooded me with unexpected care. They are how I strive to be.

Thank you for how easy it has felt to meet neighbors since moving back to Cornell. Is the community more welcoming after the fire? Am I less shy? Am I less of an a-hole? (Hopefully.) Is this the most genuinely, comfortably social I’ve ever been? Maybe so. Is it a jump to conclude that the feelings of comfort and kinship mean that this town is “home”?

Thank you for questions.

Thank you for a cold orange to start a big breakfast.

Thank you for when I will have a stable residence and can focus more energy on other causes.

Thank you for the little bird balancing toward the tip of a thin reed at Seminole where the lake once stood. The little guy bounced up and down like a diver on a board before pushing up to the sky. It made me happy for some reason.

Thank you for when I notice an uncomfortable thought or feeling fused with a reflex to escape the discomfort. (Sometimes the push to escape manifests in an urge to play with my phone.) When I notice those feelings of discomfort that nudge me to avoidance, I can pause just long enough to call them out: I feel discomfort and am drawn to escape it.

Thank you for the opportunity to connect with an extraordinary woman-and-daughter pair living in an RV up in the mountains on their “burnout lot.” They felt like family, like when you’re on someone’s side and want them to thrive.

Thank you for hugs despite the pandemic.

Thank you for Hero the bloodhound. Thank you for healing music. Thank you for dreamers who risk it all to try a new life, and who find abundance and peace. Thank you for the gratitude that inspires giving back.

Thank you for brown leaves for the compost from N down the hill.

Thank you for B’s surgery and recovery going well.

Thank you for L’s job opportunity out of state and the adventure it promises.

Thank you for M and K recovering.

Thank you for the succulent cuttings from K that are growing roots. (I adore you, Ric Rac!) 

Thank you for the ones we love staying in our hearts despite their (sometimes difficult to understand) prolonged absence. 

Thank you for future reunions with former friends.

Thank you for our courage to face fears—of failure, success, change, love… 

Thank you for earlier bedtimes, less screen time, more bike and jog and yoga, stronger faith, a happier outlook.

Thank you for interconnected life, so that my health and wellness benefit you, and vice versa. Please be well!