We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started . . . and know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thank you for growth from pushing outside one’s familiar bubble.

Thank you for acknowledgement of all our challenges paired with faith in the goodness of humanity.

Thank you for Washington DC Air BnB hosts raising my awareness of what’s going on in their home country of Tibet. Thank you for everything being impermanent. Thank you for when S may have the opportunity to see her family again.

Thank you for the friendliness of the lady who sold me Hippeas at the Amtrak Cafe.

Thank you for the heart melt when J’s boy asked, “Can I call you my little plushie?”

Thank you for J sharing with me her and Z’s epic love story from the beginning, and letting me in on more of her past than ever. Thank you for the trust to confide in her likewise. It’s funny how you can know someone most of your life and still learn about each other. Thank you for her quotes, borrowed and original. (Problems really are opportunities in disguise!) Thank you for her and Z’s kindness uplifting others. Thank you for their success.

Thank you for their boys’ personalities and character. Thank you for the atmosphere of respect they’ve grown up in. Thank you for Pippin’s smile. Thank you for the privilege to be included in an extraordinary family, to be part of a loving home. Thank you for daily life with them. Thank you for laughing until crying. Thank you for hugs in abundance.

Thank you for “weird” folks like us.

Thank you for traveling light.

Thank you for sailboats on the Hudson.

Thank you for subway cars packed with colors.

Thank you for rainy days that give birth to rainbows. Thank you for rainbows not discriminating. They pop up in country canyons, on tropical islands, in the heart of Brooklyn… Anywhere!

Thank you for Bed-Stuy hairdos showcasing a beauty some of us have struggled to accept in ourselves.

Thank you for embracing my home-free inner gypsy.

Thank you for a hiatus from makeup.

Thank you for confidence expanding.

Thank you for what the “push your flaws” quote tells me. Certain things about me I’ve struggled to appreciate. If they’re alterable and the change seems positive, then I’ve been going for it. Other stuff I’m growing to embrace as-is. I guess what’s worth changing and what we embrace are really up to each of us to figure out for ourselves. IDK…

I do wonder if some or most “flaws” we perceive in ourselves are simply parts that stand out because they’re different. Really they needn’t be considered flaws but valuable rarities that were just misinterpreted.

Thank you for CBT articulating errors in thinking to spur insights into self and others. Thank you for online resources. Thank you for empowerment through understanding.

Thank you for the positive lifestyles in Dan Buettner’s new Netflix series on the blue zones. I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far. (Okinawa’s now added to the dream travel list!)

Thank you for the comfort factor in the Big Apple. Walkability may play a role. Plus New Yorkers live so much in plain view that there’s less room for pretense. Interactions otherwise behind closed doors or in backyards happen right in the open. (I think disarming may be a good word for it.)

Thank you for the City’s “this is who I am” style. Thank you for its attitude. Thank you for hodgepodge cohesiveness when heaps of colorful dots meld into a single entity unlike anything else. 

To be one of the dots is an honor. I guess we all are tiny dots all the time if we really think about it. We’re little pieces of a big picture, and we sustain the whole alive in us.

Thank you for the invigoration of adventure and the joy of returning home. 

Thank you for accepting family. 

Thank you for Sister journeys toward peace. Thank you for the work we do expanding us. Thank you for love from the universe along the way.

Thank you (again) for a move to Cali in a few weeks offering an unmet future and new friends.

May faith in your vision of happiness—of wholeness—keep opening paths for you, too.

May our acknowledgement of strengths and appreciation for progress encourage their growth.

Thank you for you.

Be well <3