Grace-period

One of my spiritual practices is gratitude. I purposefully declined to participate in a 30 day gratitude challenge on FB statuses because it can be, well, trite. But since today is Thanksgiving, I awoke with a desire to write out a gratitude list. It was too long for Facebook, so here goes: I am grateful for friends who are like family and family who have become my friends. I am deeply thankful that, despite my attempt today to write thank you notes to them, that my heart's love cannot be contained in those ineffectual sentences. The notes and texts can only contain the rational portions of what they mean to me, but my heart and spirit sung while thinking of each of them. I am grateful for my dear husband. He is hunting right now, not unlike a step father  who used to get my mother's ire every holiday he hunted. I smile about that now because I do not mind. My husband's companionship over our 22 years has a sweetness to it that I cannot shake. Sometimes we have walked besid...

I posted a Facebook update today that read: I don't have the ability to make my voice deep and commanding right now thanks to bronchitis. I can barely make an intelligible noise at times, and what does come out squeaks like a pubescent boy. So I wasn't sure how my dogs would react. They are a sweet pack of strong headed hunting dogs. They follow strength, or the scent of a pheasant.  When I let them out today, they were their  usual jubilant selves. You can almost see them crying out, "Freedom!!!" But then I had to lead them from the outside, past bird cages and yummy scents, back to their kennels. I tried to give them the most commanding squeak I could, but they weren't buying what I was trying to sell. Hunter thought it was a game, but Gabs and Bear just looked at me. Still, where I went, they followed. None of the usual need to call and cajole. My voice was not as needed. It was my daily presence and routine that they could trust. It was the relationship that w...

Over the summer I was at a gathering of friends where we were sharing our anxieties. One woman shared that she was afraid her cancer was back. She felt it. She knew it. She didn't look as anxious to me as she did tired. I shared after her that I felt very foolish. Particularly sharing after her, because I was upset and anxious about professional concern-ones that I had a hand in making. There doesn't seem to be much worse to me than making oneself miserable. It is much more comforting to be able to blame another person, something outside of me. The next day, both of us were admitted to the hospital. Her cancer was indeed back. My anxiety wasn't actually due to my profession as much as it was that I was quite ill. Had I not gone to the doctor's we might not have discovered it until too late. But here, months later, I have recovered, while she is actively dying.  I cannot say that we were ever real friends. She and I have shared a circle and therefore have been part of th...