Thank you for shared beauty secrets.

Thank you for the growing trust between Sister and me.

Thank you for breakfast salads.

Thank you for pleasing flavor combos, like tamari and lime.

Thank you for thunder cats, bear cats, and tyrant lizard kings.

Thank you for marzipan.

Thank you for homemade galettes.

Thank you for a few things I love about road biking: (1) It’s a little bit riskier than everyday life otherwise. The reminder that I’m impermanent makes me feel alive. (2) It’s humbling to push the limitations of my body and still not move past average, and there’s comfort in being a dot among many in the thick part of the curve. (3) A long or hard ride leaves me too spent for the sadness and excitement that upset equilibrium. All that’s left is calm. (4) Cycling is a way to see the world, or at least to explore around town, free from the guilt of dirty transportation. (5) Exchanging waves and smiles with fellow animals scurrying outdoors is incompatible with loneliness.

Thank you for dog ears that point up and ones that hang down.

Thank you for the possibility to be in love.

Thank you for skirts with flattering lengths.

Thank you for legumes.

Thank you for bodily function humor.

Thank you for feeling freer to be my weird self.

Thank you for laughs with Sister talking about the arrow in her head and the rock in mine.

Thank you for spinach pies. Thank you for adas.

Thank you for Lebanese Americans with Southern drawls, like my Oklahoman dad.

Thank you for octopuses and other sci-fi creatures that actually are.

Thank you for countless blessings every single day.

Thank you for hope to have more of a voice and to find the right words to say the right way—and even if I don’t, I’ll try, and that will be ok.

Thank you for chats with Gayle on the lawn outside her condo.

Thank you for full days.

Thank you for a little more progress on the house details without obsessing about it.

Thank you for people who carve their own path, and for couples who do so.

Thank you for memories of lazing in the Cali sun.

Thank you for health insurance.

Thank you for absentee ballots.

Thank you for determination to make it work.

Thank you for patience with myself when I don’t know how to ask for what I need.

Thank you for Peaches loving almost everything I feed her (not arugula).

Thank you for sweaty workouts.

Thank you for when I care less about how I look and more about how I feel.

Thank you for an abundance of clean drinking water.

Thank you for online friends.

Thank you for calming faces.

Thank you for the hopeful feeling about next summer.

Thank you for repaired family rifts.

Thank you for how much clearer and calmer I sometimes feel after meditating.

Thank you for that Robert Redford movie with no talking where he’s alone on the water almost the entire time.

Thank you for plants that climb walls.

Thank you for insightful, caring friends. 

Thank you for soul music.

Thank you for periods of rest.

Thank you for openness to change.

Thank you for the little things that make a big difference.

Thank you for a smooth vet visit.

Thank you for feeling safe from earthquakes, wildfires, floods…

Thank you for peace all around.

Thank you for stocked shelves at grocery stores. Thank you for a stocked pantry at home.

Thank you for a blanket to keep warm nights.

Thank you for loyalty.

Thank you for dependability.

Thank you for when we get to hear the voice of a friend we’ve been missing.

Thank you for extraordinary regular folks forging unique everyday lives.

Thank you for faith in the next step forward when you have no idea where to go.

Thank you for buffalo sightings on bike rides.

Thank you for when it’s easier to think of things I’m grateful for.

Thank you for the lessons tucked within every difficulty.

Thank you for the growing availability of plastic-free options.

Thank you for good health.

Thank you for common threads linking people who at first glance seem quite different.

Thank you for the way anxieties can dissolve when faced.

Thank you for hindsight, and for lessons learned from it. Same goes for foresight.

Thank you for mindful awareness not just of the present but also of the past and future.

Thank you for gifts from my dad.

Thank you for political will.

Thank you for hope that good change is near.

Thank you for loving relationships.

Thank you for funny perspectives when situations feel too serious.

Thank you for friends who listen without judgement.

Thank you for science informing policies and lifestyles.

Thank you for things going right when so much seems not to be going right.

Thank you for electronic library books.

Thank you for simple thoughts.

Thank you for beginners’ minds.

Thank you for the difference between cleverness and wisdom.

Thank you for the warm, happy feeling of greetings between strangers.

Thank you for self-care strategies.

Thank you for when the waiting is worth it.

Thank you for this Thich Nhat Hanh quote: Love is not only enjoyment – we enjoy the presence of pleasant people. Love is a practice of generating more compassion and understanding. You must always remember that love is not just a matter of enjoyment. Love is a practice. And it is that aspect of love that can bring you growth and happiness – the greatest happiness.

Thank you for a new thought about relationships. I’ll confess that most of the ones I see don’t seem mutually beneficial and respectful or content, at least from the outside. And single status too—it doesn’t seem healthy when the explanations given for it are laced with anger or pessimism. So the thought is, considering the flood of unhealthy relationships toward relationships, the bulk of advice that seeps from this flood may be contaminated, too. Those in search of guidance toward a genuine partnership best wade carefully through common opinions.

Thank you for Rumi’s A Song of Being Empty.

Thank you for budding loves that make it off the ground despite repeated misunderstandings that sometimes happen when timid passions greet.

Thank you for decent and trustworthy folks who see decency and trustworthiness in the world.

Thank you for mundane details of daily life that, shared, feed trust. It’s counterintuitive: superficialities hold deeper value. What appears to kill intimacy nourishes it.

Thank you for a trip to back to Cali, hopefully this winter or spring.  Thank you for the possibility to visit friends.

Thank you for the thought that although I miss friends back home, perhaps the responsible move is to wait until this latest surge subsides before we visit. I wouldn’t want my impatience to hurt their loved ones. 

Thank you for patience with confusions within confusions.

Thank you for problems to maneuver through and come out better on the other side.

Thank you for when I have the courage to express thoughts that may be foolish or off the mark but are inside asking to be shared. Thank you for the learning that comes from sharing even what is foolish or off the mark.

Thank you for the capacity to communicate doubts knowing they are issues worthy to consider.

Thank you for undivided attention.

Thank you for vetiver.

Thank you for bedtime stretches.

Thank you for friends who feel like home.