Social media in November is often full of folks sharing what they're thankful for, and it's not a bad practice, but I find that if I just try to list "Things I'm thankful for" every day for a month it just turns into the same list. Of course I'm thankful for my family, my home, my friends. This year, though, I'm borrowing from my old friend Jen, who shared a new approach on Facebook: "Thirty Days of Thankfulness" grounded in the ordinary details of our daily lives. I've been writing them down all month long, and tonight I thought I'd share them here.
Day 1: Person
One of my very truest friends. I call him "Coach" when I write about him online. He's one of the most important people in my life, and I can't imagine my life without him in it or the person I would be without him. He makes me want to be the best version of myself, and he loves me even when I fall short. He's honest with me. He always manages to find my re-set button, even long-distance, and he always seems to bring the perspective I need. He's really raised me as a teacher, and as a human.
Day 2: Animal
The otters and harbor seals at the Seattle Aquarium, where we spent a couple of hours this month with my friend Jessica and her kiddos. Also the octopus, who was alert and energetic and fun to watch. (The animals were great, but thinking of them really reminds me about how thankful I am that I still have this friendship from my childhood, and that our kids know each other, and even when we don't see each other for a long time we can still hang out like no time at all has passed.)
Day 3: Cozy Place
My living room couch on late fall or early winter Sunday afternoons, especially with Isaac's fleece Batman blanket.
Day 4: Snack: Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn (only because I can't have my dad's homemade popcorn whenever I want it). My absolute favorite time for this is after school on Fridays...I pop some for the kids and me, change into pajama pants, put on a movie for them, pour a little red wine for me, and curl up with a really good book.
Day 5: Place
Kalaloch, on the Olympic Peninsula. Matt and I love staying in a bluff cabin for anniversary getaways in December. My soul is so peaceful there -- the wild ocean in winter, the empty beaches. I think it does for my heart and psyche what Lake McDonald does in summer, with fewer people. (A lot fewer people.) We spend all our daylight hours exploring the beaches, and at night we curl up with books and drinks and snacks and a fire, and it is perfect. Also: there is absolutely no wi-fi. The cabins do not have televisions or telephones. In case of emergency, there is a phone at the main lodge, and if you really need to watch a movie or whatever the main lodge also has a cozy library/game room with a TV, but I love (love) the opportunity to disconnect with technology and connect with the human I'm with and really just be present in my surroundings in a way that feels like a luxury.
Day 6: Pair of Shoes
I so don't care about shoes, like at all, and I would happily go barefoot all the time if I could. I'm thankful for my Danskos because they last a long time and I don't have to think about what to wear most days, and I can kick them off as soon as I walk in my door.
Day 7: Scent
Roasting chicken on Sunday evenings (one of my favorite meals, and we have this once or twice a month, always on Sundays). Pumpkin or caramel or cinnamon-scented candles. Christmas trees. My husband's t-shirts when he wears them fresh out of the shower. (My husband, freshly showered.)
Day 8: Restaurant
The Elliott Bay Brewery in West Seattle, which we have loved for our entire married lives. Actually, our love for EBB dates from before we were married. We've practically raised our children there. I love their cozy booths, their grown-up grilled cheese, their Cabernet (Matt loves the beer more than I do; I prefer wine), their burgers (the BEST!), their ahi tacos, their vegetarian chili, their monthly specials, and the folks who know us well enough to know exactly how our kids like their carrots steamed.
Also, Plum Bistro, one of our favorite kid-free date spots. (I really, really hope we can go soon.) Their Fresh Thyme Quinoa Pie is so good I could cry just thinking about it, because suddenly I want it and I can't have it right this second. I also really love their Olive Pesto Tofu and their Tempeh Vermouth. Bonus: it's easy walking distance from my favorite bookstore.
Day 9: Blog/website
Goodreads! Do you like to read? If you do, and you're not on Goodreads, GET ON GOODREADS. I love reading what people think about the books they're reading. I love writing about what I'm reading.
I also love jennibick.com because I am always in search of the perfect journal and all my favorites come from there, and the customer service is above and beyond.
Day 10: Time of Day
I really love early mornings, if I need to be out earlier than usual. I love the still quiet. I am, by nature, a morning person; it's just that since having kids I so adore having a little time to myself after they go to bed that it's hard to get enough sleep to really appreciate those early mornings. (My daughter, it seems, is following in my footsteps. Jazz band starts at 7 a.m., and I have no idea what time that child gets up. No matter how early I get up, she's always up first.)
On ordinary weekdays, I love the time when I get to school, Americano in hand, and -- unless I have a meeting, which happens about once a week -- I have a quiet hour in my classroom.
On weekends, I love the time when the kids have gone to bed and I'm curled up on the couch writing and/or watching Neflix or tucked in with a book and often and gin and tonic on the couch. Matt and I are companionably together, even if he's watching something and I'm reading.
Day 11: Traditions
Every November, the week of Thanksgiving, I watch Pieces of April. Usually it's the night before Thanksgiving, while Matt bakes (or at least preps) the pumpkin and pecan pies we contribute to Thanksgiving dinner. It is my very favorite movie, ever since I first saw it shortly after it came out -- almost fifteen years ago, I think? I'll always love Katie Holmes as April, although everyone in it is absolutely perfect. It's a simple story, really; April, the estranged daughter, invites her family to Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The movie follows two strands -- the family's drive to the city, and April's meal preparations, which are foiled by a broken oven, so she has to rely on the kindness of her neighbors. The conclusion is beautiful and I sob every time I watch it. Someday I'd love to watch it with my mom.
Day 12: Gadgets
This isn't really a gadget, but I don't...know anything about gadgets, or what counts as one. So I'm going to say our new stainless steel refrigerator, which we had to buy because our freezer stopped working. And we got to buy it form one of my former students, a quiet boy with a radiant smile. I never forgot that smile, and seeing it again seven years later made everything about the experience pretty okay.
Day 13: Something old
Our dining room table, which came from my grandmother's house on the farm. The sides could fold down so that it fit inside the corner of the tiny kitchen in my first college apartment; I can also add heavy leaves to extend it across my dining room. It's sturdy and well made, and I've never seen a table with internal gears that turn when the table is widened to accommodate more people.
Day 14: Something new
The bookshelf in Suzannah's bedroom, because it restores my sense of order and gave us a reason to clear out so many things she no longer needs. Her piles of books are off her floor!
Also: our new roof. We've needed one for awhile, but not urgently. I'm glad we took the time to get it looked at well over a year ago so we could plan and save, and now we'll never need to spend another penny on this roof as long as we live in this house -- and my husband won't have to climb up there to try to scrape off the moss anymore. (I'm a worrier. I didn't love it when he did that.)
Day 15: Experience
Watching my daughter play soccer under the lights at night. We had this fantastic referee at a game in Puyallup last year who said, "Girls this age, you don't get 'em under the lights very often, but there's just nothing like it!"
Also, watching my kids compete in their first Tae Kwon Do tournament was so much fun. I love everything about Tae Kwon Do and I am so thankful it's become part of our lives, and I truly believe they're learning from the very best of the best.
Finally, I so love our family weekend getaways, and this is the point in year when I start to look forward to them: Great Wolf Lodge for the kids' birthdays, Leavenworth in late January, and Portland/Powell's in February. This is how we get through the post-Christmas slog: hotel pools, cozy meals, lights, sledding, bookstores.
Day 16: Recipe
My grandmother's potato salad, which is sublime. I remember watching her make it -- cutting the potatoes into precise uniform cubes. Her careful slicing of the egg. My mother makes it beautifully; I've never tried. I fear I lack the patience, because I take after my grandfather.
Something I do make, and something I love this time of year: soup. I love soup recipes. I love cauliflower-chickpea soup with cranberry chutney and Indonesian sweet potato and cabbage soup, both from the Moosewood cookbook. I also love pumpkin and white bean bisque, or coconut pumpkin soup topped with diced cooked chicken, or Portuguese kale and potato soup topped with sausage.
And I really enjoy the cheesy black bean and quinoa bake from the Picky Eater Blog. (We've gotten so many recipes from that site; I should add it to Day 9.
Day 17: Store
The Elliott Bay Book Company
Third Place Books
King's Books
Powell's
Basically any indie bookstore (which is where I choose to buy books, because I have access here and I believe strongly in supporting independent bookstores)
Day 18: Quote
From my two very favorite writers...
"You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up." --Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides
"A story untold could be the one that kills you." --Pat Conroy
"My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call." --the first sentence of The Prince of Tides and, very seriously, possibly, my next tattoo
"The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough." --Pat Conroy
"Love is the story and the prayer that matters the most." --Brian Doyle
"There are stories in the air as thick as birds around me, he would say. I will save these stories from starving, he would say. I have a great hunger for stories, he would say." --Brian Doyle, Mink River
Day 19: Clothing
My favorite socks from Kalaloch Lodge (otters, orcas) and my Turnip Shirt. I wear it with leggings and a stretchy skirt when I just need to Not Care. Also, the folks who work in the produce section at Marlene's, this fabulous natural foods store near me, love my Turnip Shirt.
Day 20: Keepsake
My maternal grandmother's wedding ring and my paternal grandmother's necklace, the one she designed and had made a few years after my grandpa died. They're not pieces I wear, but they are special to me. I am not usually sentimental about things, but these small things feel like tangible connections to my family.
Day 21: A disappointment or a fear
This is hard. I want to come up with something more concrete to share, but for now, I'll just say that something I thought I wanted is something I am far better off without, and I'm thankful for that realization, for what it's taught me. There's a reason we have all these pithy sayings about hindsight.
Day 22: Book
The one I just finished, for providing the perfect Thanksgiving weekend reading experience: The Witch Elm, by Tana French. I was nervous about this being a stand-alone because I love the world of the Dublin Murder Squad, but it may actually be my favorite so far -- even though I warmed to so few of the characters, French's ability to take us inside their minds and learn what drives them is what sets her apart form the mystery writers I read "for fun."
The one I'm currently reading: The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley. It's a modern re-visioning of Beowulf: Beowulf in the suburbs. The language is stunning and I'm loving it.
Also: All the books I go back to when I need a particular page or passage...this quote from The Overstory by Richard Powers (also a stunning read) resonates:
Someday you'll need to take down a worn-out volume on the lower right-hand face, ten pages from the end, that fills you with such sweet and vicious pain.Day 23: Feeling:
The moment I slide into sleep on a Sunday afternoon, cuddled under Isaac's fleece blanket
or
The way I feel when I'm completely caught up in grading and my desk is clear
or
Leaving my house on Wednesday morning after I've cleaned...scrubbed bathrooms and vacuum lines in the carpet. My colleagues make fun of me, but I'm up hours before I take my son to school, and I love coming home to a sanctuary in the middle of the week. And my house is my sanctuary -- I do better when it's not cluttered and dirty.
Day 24: Photo
My current Facebook profile photo, a drawing my son made for me -- two hearts holding hands, labeled "Mommy" and "Me." That's more of a drawing than a photo, though. I love photos of my children than show them being their absolutely true ridiculous selves, snapped in the moment. I love photos of our family in our favorite places: Bozeman, Glacier. Matt and me Kalaloch, the wind whipping my hair, the ocean in the background. Or even just the ocean, roiling at the shore in the first light of day.
Also: Google sends me "Rediscover this day!" notifications, and I love the pictures that remind me that four or five years ago my children were so short and round and little and soft. I would never wish them backwards, but oh. My babies.
Day 25: Luxury
Reading and/or writing alone for an uninterrupted stretch of time. Wandering through a bookstore by myself. Having alone time at the Elliott Bay Book Co. -- books, coffee, wine. Sitting alone an airplane, once I've calmed down. Reading, ordering a glass of wine.
Day 26: Charity, non-profit, organization, etc.
Matt and I have given to all of these, and all are worth of our support:
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - https://hias.org
American Civil Liberties Union - https://www.aclu.org/
Southern Poverty Law Center - https://www.splcenter.org/
Everytown for Gun Safety - https://everytown.org/
Planned Parenthood - https://www.plannedparenthood.org/
Pat Conroy Literary Center - http://patconroyliterarycenter.org/
Homeless Humans of Tacoma - https://www.facebook.com/homelesshumans.help/
NPR - https://www.npr.org/
Day 27: Song
Right now I really love listening to my CD from the 2002 Concordia Christmas Concert when I'm driving, since that one is in my car. That and Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong. At this time of year, I want to feel everything -- the darkness and the light -- and this is the music that takes me through it all.
Day 28: Gift
At the end of the last school year, my departing seniors gave me a copy of Because I Had A Teacher. They'd written messages inside, and I keep it close by for days when I need to remember why I do this job. It works. Every time I read what they wrote, I'm reminded of what a deep privilege it is to do this work. And that gift is one of the best I've ever received.
Day 29: Something at home
Simple comforts that I love coming home to: my microwave heat pack (I love curling up with that in bed, or during Sunday afternoon naps, or on the couch at night when I'm curled up with a book); the candles I light in the kitchen that smell like caramel and cinnamon or spiced apple toddies; the Norwex cleaning products that allow me to clean my house really efficiently; my snowflake mugs that I only use during the holiday season; my kids' drawings hung up in different parts of the house; my pajama pants and slippers. Honestly, I'm a homebody. I love coming home and I love spending time here with my family. Which brings me to this...
Day 30: What I'm MOST thankful for
This is the most obvious, but I'm most thankful for my family. The family that raised me and the family I live with. My husband and my children, my reasons for breathing. I grumble about the dirty socks, the crumbs on the counter, the toys strewn across the family room, the noise, the bickering, the fact that I haven't had uninterrupted time in the bathroom in over a decade...but the things I bitch about are also the nudging reminders that the sources of those irritants are people I love with every breath I take, and I will choose it all, again, every single day, with my whole heart.
