i am grateful for…

1) a husband who talks me down from the freak-out tree with mini kisses and reminders to be grateful.

2) seeing e. and lil enzo! he’s such a finger-gripper, grown-up runner.

3) a job that lets me use my skillz.

4) the we’moon year at a glance horoscope for aries.

5) hot water and soap for hand-washing.

6) “the geography of bliss” by eric weiner. such a good happiness journey.

7) organic cream of earl grey tea from david’s tea.

8) being off the coff. (ee) it’s good.

9) a new shrink who is smart and kind and not letting me squirm away too much.

10) going inside after having ice-cold ear tops. they burn so sweet.

11) assignments.

12) chai tea from de luxe, made with fresh ginger.

13) my neighborhood.

14) obama, again.

15) michelle’s coat.

16) the deluge of happy healthy babies dropping all around me. good. overwhelming, but good. regeneration is at work.

17) demi-bangs.

18) going chocolate shopping at whole foods. kid in a grown-up, expensive, fair-traded, organic, single-origin candy shop.

19) this awful-awesome bit of business jargon someone actually said to me: “we want to become more proactive and sales-aggressive on our touch-ins.” no idea what it means, but i think it could win a contest.

20) heat.

21) being married for a whole year. and people say the first year is hard. i say, what?

22) focusing on the positive so the negative may diminish in its shadow.

i am grateful for:

1) seeing anne lamott last night at symphony space with a. she’s funny and smart and inspiring and i want to be as disciplined and expressed as her.

2) friday. has this week not been 10 weeks long?

3) staying semi-detached as the drama whirs past me.

4) beginning to learn EFT. it might be the thing–the thing that helps me clear out this emotional emotional system of mine. i’ve always had more than my share of da feelings and they get so activated and i get cloudy and not so functional, so if there’s a way to ring the sponge, that might also get rid of my migraines, i am so game.

5) nightmares last night of dara. of holding and then losing her baby. in real life, she didn’t get to have a baby, and in the dream i lost hers. it vanished from my arms and therefore i felt responsible. it was snowing out. it was awful, awful for so many reasons, but i feel like my psyche is clearing out some old stuff. processing the layers of death from earlier this year. last night anne lamott said when she meets god some day she’s going to be like, “OK, dude, what was THAT?” about her best friend dying they were both 37. i feel like that. OK, what was THAT? why can’t i go get pie with my friend? why?

6) the store meadow in the west village. they have: flowers, salts (like 100 kinds of finishing salts), chocolate (like 100 kinds of artisinal amazingness), and bitters (i’m excited to try chocolate bitters in a cocktail). i heart this store.

7) the show “once upon a time.” addicted. and just realized this morning that curses break, things begin to heal, when you have a witness. and emma is a witness. wow. really, just, check it out.

8) help, thanks, wow. the name of anne lamott’s new book, but also, as she says, the three ways to pray. indeed.

9) did i mention friday? and grass-fed burgers planned with my honey? and house-made ginger soda? (maybe with a little something stronger? mmm)

10) dark red toenail polish.

i am grateful for:

1) fresh direct. our beloved fairway is sadly lost to the storm for at least another few months. this is so sad. i am grieving for a supermarket. it had five feet of water in it. which means not only do the bananas get wet, but cases float and shatter, everything collapses, everything molds: it took 70 dumpsters to clear it out. hurts my heart. especially because it’s an oddly special place, with river views and the statue of liberty (our lady, we call her) right there. and running into people from high school and around the way. and the people who work there generally being so nice, and the way you can get bread sliced, free. but fresh direct is delivering again, which is better than just overspending at the bodegas. and we have tons of food coming tomorrow, and that feels like a relief and homey. i miss a full fridge. very american of me, but there it is.

2) working through difficult stuff that in other relationships would have slayed me. just actually talking things through and it being better. like, i can stop promising i’ll make granola out of guilt and then not making it, then promising again. so humiliating to see these cracks in me–promises not kept. but strengthening, and hopefully with carryover power. i am struck again and again by the ovaries it takes to be vulnerable. to admit what i am ashamed of in my own behavior. and the beautiful magic that happens when i do, often: acceptance, freedom, relief.

3) kevin clash, for 28 years of elmo loveliness.

4) writing. god i love writing. it feels selfish this love. but we love what we love.

5) dancing. i miss dancing.

6) the nice man i sat next to on the bus from woodstock. i love that feeling of sitting next to a stranger and talking about your life. it gives you a fresh view on you, and it’s so oddly intimate and freeing. i said i was married in the first 45 seconds or so, and that took care of that part, but i love those moments of connection, fleeting and seemingly random, that remind me how many hearts there are out there struggling with the world. same with the woman i had breakfast with at the inn. same but different. she mentioned a couple of times that people had died. but offhand. i could see that sea of fear in her eyes and i wanted to say, “what about death?” but that felt a little heavy for a 9am breakfast by the stream. so instead i told her i thought she was a therapist. she asked why, and i said, because she was good listener, which she was. turns out she used to be a shrink and then became a financial adviser, a therapist for people and money.

7) flannel sheets.

8) lavender oil.

9) c & g tuning forks: http://www.biosonics.com/Sets/. they’re amazingly relaxing.

10) rediscovering my elf hat. and pom-pom knee-highs.

i am grateful for…

1) gratitude everywhere! its health benefits are in the times, a lot of my FB friends are listing things they’re grateful for daily this month. it’s NICE. the gratitude vibration is one of healing and positivity and saying yes to what is. i love it. you can feel how it softens hard edges, makes impossible things seems somehow doable.

2) a four-day work week.

3) november, which inevitably feels cozy. sweaters and blankets and soft places while frost gathers and wind whirls.

4) getting away to woodstock last weekend. i heart it there. even though it feels, well, impoverished during the cold, like there should be many more people supporting the businesses than there are, it also feels warm and lovely in the populated pockets. like the yoga class/sound healing i went to at woodstock yoga center with the folks from sage wellness. he played tuning forks and singing bowls; she guided us into restorative poses. and i actually, for a change STAYED in the poses, sans squirming, because of the bowls. the next day when i told this to our teacher lea, who is also an awesome craniosacral therapist, she said, “it’s the sound. it just completely silences the monkey mind.” it’s true. it’s not possible to really think when the bowls are all going at once, even, “i don’t like the music.” it just obliterates the chatty mind reflex. and as a result was profoundly relaxing. want more.

5) deep tub in my inn room. two long baths with lavender and vanity fair.

6) having a tub in our own apartment. YAY.

7) worrying about stuff, then tapping into my support system, which somehow redistributes the worry weight so it’s not such high pressure at any one point in my structure. so that it’s bearable. emotional engineering.

8) visiting e. at the children’s emergency area in the hospital. cribs with wheels that look like mini jails but are hospital beds. a little boy being wheeled around in a big toy car while his mom asks about my psychedelic pants. the couple holding a baby while their two-year-old is in one of those cribs. and valiant e. in her bed, in the midst of this. because when you’re 14 and have cancer, this is where they put you when sudden fever hits. and it sucks. and i want to convey to her somehow that i know this sucks, and from that knowing, that it will also be ok. i really know. which j. mentions to her. and that wave of recognition transitions between our eyes. but i wish i could say something wiser than, “some day you’re going to have a great story to tell.” but i can’t so i revert to my standby: i rub her feet. i want to find some way to make love known, well, to make love matter to someone with a tube in her arm who should be bouncing around a soccer field and doing homework and texting about who likes whom. and there’s so much to say that there’s nothing, really except trying to emit, “i am here,” which i am, but barely, because of course this place is home to parental nightmares. but it’s also, maybe, healing. and there are nurses with compassion that comes from some well 1000 feet deep, who are also tough enough to step right in there and encourage e. to drink her water, even if dinner sucks.

9) the show once upon a time. holy shiz, it’s great fun. not very far in, but love.

10) puzzles. like the cardboard kind. we have a new one and i’m excited to use it.

11) peace in the gaps.

i am grateful for:

1) the moody way late fall evenings fall so fast. boom! you’re in the romantic dark, glowing in laptop light!

2) really gorgeous typefaces. like the ones here.

3) the volunteer spirit lighting up nyc.

4) oh, bama. whewbama.

5) having a tub! we have a tub! it’s been eight months since i’ve had a soak in my very own tub! and it only took three days of not showering to get it.

6) fall veggies; kohlrabi, savoy cabbage, sweet potatoes. yum.

7) “you don’t have to apologize for being dramatic.” my DH, accepting me, which makes me feel less dramatic.

8) getting help with some things–i’ll let you know how the hypnotherapy goes!

9) the petraeus scandal. the news story that keeps on giving. the thread unraveling the sweater on the goat who’s a trojan horse that’s filled with kachina dolls which have little mirrors inside of them that go forever into secrets down to the quark of shhh, which is full of dark matter.

10) laughing.

11) working from my sofa. oh, lovely sofa. hi, sofa.

12) going away this weekend on a valerie adventure. there will be yoga and singing bowls and shoe-shopping and pizza involved. and trees.

13) love.

14) reminders on how to chill.

i am grateful for: nyc. xoxo

i am grateful for:

1) safe friends and family.

2) having the power stay on here. it’s very odd, really. you’d never know walking around our hood that anything too bad happened. just some extra leaves. we saw those transformers blow and my thought was, “that’s some very weird lightning.”

3) the warm community feel on FB and elsewhere reaching out to those in need.

4) the thrilling-awful weirdness of seeing my beloved city taken over by water. the subways filled to the brim, the tunnels leveled with river, the east village floating. what is that–there must be a german word, right? disasterfraude? the fascination we have with things gone horribly wrong, especially when it’s nature showing us who’s really in charge. there’s a quality of helplessness that gets profound and moves into surrender. we can let go of the imaginary battle for control once we realize we really have no steering wheel, just control over the thoughts in our head and heart, and what we do with those in the world.

5) pamela’s gluten-free pancake mix made into chocolate chip cookies. mmm.

6) dinner with fun friends, as if life was normal. everyone was out in the streets, almost giddy, it seemed, to be free from the coop.

7) brian lehrer at wnyc. he is amazing. he’s been covering this storm on wnyc like nobody else. and he had ELMO on, which totally made me cry.

8) WSJ.com. i know, right? but also, fantastic storm coverage. kicking the nyt’s bootie, with lots of streaming updates, links to things i actually want to know like, when will the subways run? (answer: no clue.) but really, many other outlets seem to be limping through this.

9) working from home, she said, guiltily grateful for no subway service.

10) having b. home, she said, guiltily grateful for no subway service.

11) the eerie site of a dark manhattan view. not grateful exactly, but drawn in, creeped, fascinated.

12) mike bloomberg. he’s really doing a great freaking job. i wish him some rest soon.

i am grateful for:

1) feeling kind of emotionally after-the-storm before the storm. it would be a poor objective correlative in my-life-as-novel. i feel like i’m plucking deck chairs from trees today. so maybe that will make the storm feel cool. like it’s just rinsing away the rest.

2) saturday. just lying on the sofa. i finished “seating arrangements” by maggie shipstead. it’s full of very unlikeable characters, but it was good to read something that considered things like objective correlatives, themes, and the web that weaves each person together. not a likeable book, but a consumable one.

3) the katy perry movie. seriously. so effing well done inspiring: her dream was to sing a song on stage wearing something sparkly and have everyone sing along. she wants people to leave her concerts feeling happy and inspired. she has a dress made of swirling peppermint candy. and a leotard of light-up candy buttons. and it all feels very authentic. like she was born to be the best melt-in-your-mouth, do-your-dreams pop star evar. and she is.

4) having a husband who says things like, “i’m just adoring you.”

5) sleeping till 9.

6) a re-discovery of cinnamon toast. like this: toast whole-grain, organic bread. apply ghee. shake plenty of cinnamon. drizzle honey from linda and nelson’s beehives (or, you know, wherever). blend with butter knife. crunch! yum!

7) meditating more.

8) the political season coming to an end soon. praying for it to be a peaceful one.

9) joe fresh, the clothing store. cheap as h&m but better. good scores last night included hot pink paisley cords for $39. a good this-week-sucked mood booster.

10) speaking up in meetings where people are being less than helpful. if i did that at my old company, it would have gotten ugly and shut down fast. it’s sweet to allow myself a voice, and to have that voice be welcome by at least some.

11) red leaves.

12) so much work to do this weekend, but i have coffee, pears, and nighttime snuggles.

13) halloween in park slope.

i am grateful for:

1) the noise the down comforter makes when i snuggle in it. like papery cotton. crisp but cozy.

2) losing my glasses just long enough to dig up the back-up pair and see what it’s like to have lenses not scratched to hell. ordered new ones today. #operationnomoremigraines

3) how rearranging the bedroom lighting makes it feel like a bigger yet cozier room.

4) living on the top floor and hearing the pitter patter of absolutely nothing.

5) lots of projects.

6) support. so much support when asked.

7) bryant park. pretty fountain. leafy still.

8) getting called a “organic, hippie, new age, mexican cook.” this was a compliment on my tacos.

9) perfectly ripe avocado. heaven is full of these.

10) people who read my stuff. thanks. xo

11) being reminded to meditate twice today and actually doing it twice. am and pm.

i am grateful for:

1) how the birds flying out in the sky show up reflected in the coffee table. i wish i could show you a picture. it’s cool. like fish swimming under a top-frozen pond.

2) showering. it really is one of the best anti-depressants.

3) green & black chocolate’s new (is it new? or just new to me?) flavor: ginger. mwuh!

4) our awesome fairway shop last night. 9pm, monday night. after grass-fed burger night at fort defiance. all aisles open. no toddler-dodging. no giving the couple fighting over the cost of olive oil wide berth. just, ahhh. groceries. jesus, i am officially elder.

5) hormone-free, all-natural chocolate pudding.

6) sunshine!

5) stir-fry home lunch.

6) article interviews over email. oh my lord, that’s easier.

7) this new project i’m doing at mom365, where i’m interim editor–collecting birth stories. we’ve gotten about 20 so far and it’s so beautiful and outrage-inspiring and wonderful. strong women and incompetent doctors who do not understand some things about birth. hoping to see some good doctors appear. a birth story is the ultimate hero’s journey. shero’s journey. complete with dark night of the soul and tasting the elixir of wisdom. it’s really moving and amazing. i feel honored.

8) mastering the tweet.

9) obama’s second chance. pull it together, dude! be real. watch biden! kill him with brains and wit and warmth!

10) jon stewart, for getting us all through the mishigas without destroying anything. well, too many things. so far.