Featured, Presence

Here’s To the Workers

February 3, 2021

Biscuit, after his bath and haircut. He is so handsome! But it is not his favorite thing.

Today, I am grateful for all the people in the world who know how to do things that I don’t know how to do. Even today, on an ordinary day, I was helped by so many. I am grateful for dog groomers. I am grateful that I can drop my dog off with trained experts who are so gentle and good to him. They tell him he is the best dog ever, and scratch his head, and don’t complain about cleaning up his dribbles because he gets a little nervous when it’s time for a bath. I can leave and do errands and come back a few hours later and his ears are clean and his toenails are trimmed and he smells good again. And I did not have to do it!

I am grateful for teachers who show up day after day, even in this terrible COVID time. They prep lessons and corral unruly children and care about them.  They are encouraging my son, who is a sophomore in high school. Every day, they lead lively discussions about the Constitution, and model yoga poses, and share the history of the theatre, and thoroughly explain the importance of a good thesis statement, all while wearing masks and enforcing the mask rules for their students, which is not fun for anyone. They are teaching, in spite of everything that is going on now. It is a marvelous thing.

I am grateful for the people who work in restaurants (and grocery stores), who unload the boxes from the Continue Reading…

Presence

What I Did On My Snow Day

January 30, 2021

Maybe it was enough today just to watch the snow fall and feel so grateful that I could stay inside. Also, let me state  that firewood is a miracle, and you can never say thank you enough for it. I thought of this every time I ventured out from my  house this afternoon, walking carefully through the falling snow from the front door to the backyard wood pile, where I filled my carrier with the good logs that are keeping me warm, even as I write this. This pile of wood is a blessing that did not come easily. There is a cost to it, a sacrifice. It is a gift of trees, of oaks and firs, who offer themselves, and of time and sun and rain. It is a gift of the ones who find the fallen trees, and then cut them so that they are the right size for the wood stove, and then load them into a truck, drive them to where they are stored, and then unload them, cover them, and wait patiently for more than a year for the wood to dry so that it is good to burn. Then, when the wood is ready, it is loaded again, a final time, and driven to my house, where it is unloaded and stacked into a neat pile, where it rests and waits for the cold to come.

Grateful for the wood pile and the blue tarp that keeps it dry.

Maybe it was enough today to spend the morning in the kitchen slicing cucumbers and tomatoes for a Greek salad, and making shawarma spiced Continue Reading…