1. My grandma sent me Mimi Thorrison’s cookbook, which is very likely the most beautiful book I’ve ever owned, I can’t stop planning my next meal, but where will I get duck? Maybe I’ll raise my own- talk about meal planning
2. When I was a child she gave me Linnea’s Monet book too- I’m seeing a pattern of beauty and French
3. My daughters are beginning their love of books- both ask to be read to (Hannah’s ‘asking’ consists of holding a book up and fussing til we open it)
4. My friend is going through a hard time and while I feel deeply sad that she experiences these things, I can’t help but be excited about the transformation she’s going through and how (the overused metaphor) the diamond is forged through extreme pressure
5. I am learning just how often and effectively people keep what they really mean or think to themselves, and don’t say things, for many reasons (some seemingly out of kindness) but – maybe not but, yet? Or out of naivetè? It doesn’t feel good or right to censor myself or to delay talking about what’s real and true for me- or ask the question that no one else dares to. I’m grateful for this irreverence, and only pray my sincerity will knock the edges off any rudeness that comes across.
6. I’m also kiss-the-ground thankful I was raised in a way that makes being who I want to be fairly easy
7. A little girl at the library the other day tattled to me about the fact that my daughter didn’t have her shoes on. I smiled and said I know- then dropped my voice to a whisper and said, I don’t always make my girls follow the rules. The look on her face I will always carry with me. She was shocked and agreeing and a little something else perhaps.
8. I’m grateful that, sometimes, when you make your own rules and refuse to follow other silly ones, often people think that’s great and follow the new rules too, and change happens
9. I’m also grateful that sometimes, the rule police get all over your case and make it their mission to get you to conform, because you’re challinging something important to them and to see them defend it is beautiful. Regardless of the outcome.
10. And I’m grateful for the ways we can opt out of the game, the big one, though they’re mostly few and far between