same

I get one valuable piece of advice from the executive committee. Use pictures. I already knew the answer but sometimes I can't trust myself and who doesn't love a group of friends who work for lasagna. They bring a card, ice, and hugs and it is all so wonderfully cheesy that I can't help but wonder if it gets any better. That's when I get a text and lifeguard duty.



Today I am grateful for that squeak from the screen door, the candle she gave me, the way she calls my name, then their voices after until we're eating, talking, laughing, and listening.

list

Focus.
Edit.
Send.

Focus.
Edit.
Send.


Yoga.

Go for a walk.

Focus.
Edit.
Send.

Focus.
Edit.
Send.



Clean house.
Have a dinner party.


Today I am grateful that he's on top of the mountain and he's home.

dinner party

I am grateful for a recipe, a playlist, what fresh flowers can do to a room.

2019

It was the year we found out that every person I met could do my job better than me.

turning point

It falls toward his feet. The cigarette, it's smoldering now.

She is that girl who makes the other girls feel bad about themselves, not because she's unkind but more because she's so gorgeous and brilliant and three hours.

I wish I had taken notes.



Today I am grateful for those three hours, help with layout, how now all others look so dull in comparison.

the summer book

Wood ducklings and glowing in the dark while dancing to Van Halen seems like a completely reasonable way to spend a Monday evening. The photo is blurred but unmistakable.

Today I am grateful for a dance party, a glow, the writing which must flow.

the obsessing part

A project can nudge, remind, reveal. It will wake you up in a sleep without even or does it whisper? It allows denial of all sorts. Think, think, think, look, look, read, see, change, and wonder how many more silly mistakes you made being careless. It is just sometimes that I ache for Jake Isaac while still hoping to see and hear from Ben Howard.

Today I am grateful for work.

channelling creative energy

Today I am grateful for friends who make you do what you said you would. I am grateful for a walk with a touch of run, for the sandwich after. I am grateful to bear witness to the type of creative energy I would so like to channel for the magazine today.

slow motion

It's the weekend jam when we slow down and dance around the house and complete eight more pages of that thing that has to happen but I'm fighting it. Why in the world did I choose writing? If it chose me, it'd surely be easier than this.

Today I am grateful for a complaint department which handles my calls exactly as it should.

Shut up and get to work!

one exclamation point

She is a master storyteller, and it's one of the greatest things about claiming to be a writer. The people you get to hang out with tell great stories. You know the ones. We all lean in close because she never seems to raise her voice. Then as something happens and she jumps at you in the very exact correct amount of one exclamation point. A softly but quickly spoken !.

(Maybe she didn't jump, but that's definitely what we did.)


Today I am grateful to work and love alongside storytellers, to follow their lead.

list getting in the way of doing things on the list

There is a list of people who need to be responded to immediately but making that list would just get in the way of me getting back to them quickly.

The front cover is done, and so is the back cover ad.
Four stories received.
Three interviews completed.
A zillion photos to choose from.

Sixty-six more pages to create.
But first respond immediately.
After doing three minutes of ankle strengthening yoga poses.


Today I am grateful for photographs, a list, a plate of fish, a jeep of women, and a room of men.

watching someone else smoke

"Wake up," he says.
He pulls out a cigarette.
I sit on the steps and watch.
He's leaving. I just returned.
My warning is, "You're going to love it, man."


Today I am grateful for a field, a game, a guy, a text, a photo.

publishing

"You're crazy," she says, and I think I probably always knew.

Today I am grateful for writers who send stories before deadlines and how all those things that had you worried were nothing to worry about.

the forever plus a day guy

Today I am grateful for the girl who was always practicing the shark escape, the one who thought of everything, the performance artist, and how it felt to just be without worrying that we were not worrying about everything. I am grateful for that guy who was good with just a card on a day he deserves so much more so we'll think of him again tomorrow and the next day till forever plus a day.

three

Today I am grateful for three evenings, three mornings, and three friends.

trail legs

It takes two weeks, they say.
Two weeks to hurt and heal,
to break blisters, to callus,
to ease up, and let go.


Today I am grateful for how the trail breaks us.

yoga to frozen, it was her daddy's fault

The turning point of the evening is always much clearer the next morning when we all look back in shame at how we, or maybe just me, slammed that door in that baby's face.

butIthought that the man who was holding that snake was going to throw it on me.
And that's the truth.

The turning point was when I saw the snake. On my way to the car, finished with a beautiful evening of yoga with kids and food in my hand. How could I ever want for more? Magosh, people.
I could have easily with possibly only a whimper stepped over that snake, got in my car and driven home.

End of evening.

but there's something wrong with me. I didn't even think before I screamed, burst at least seven blood vessels in my brain, turned around, and began to run as if I was being chased by a man who wanted to throw a snake on me because he did.

He will admit to it.

But she will always hold the slamming of the door against me,
and I will have to live with that shame
while begging her forgiveness.

I am in debt to children.

Today I am grateful for a pool in a cool evening.
And a story to write about a kid, a coach, a young man, an older one, a trip, a trail, the dang beach.

journal

Today I am grateful for a Canadian friend, a signal, an invitation, a joke, a hope that she doesn't stay mad at me, eighteen miles, and forgiveness.

welcome home

Today is my day off, but today I need to walk. What if I don't get a day off from helping myself be better, healthier, stronger, longer? It feels good to push through pain. Results are 12.7 miles, 3.2 of those were faster than normal, boiled shrimp, grilled catfish, dirty rice, a hot dog with sauce, a turkey salad sandwich.

He says, "Just cut out the bread."

"Won't be a problem. Just got to finish what I got."

It's hard to break from the sweet tea this time, and I don't know why other than that stuff cold in a Mississippi hot feels like home. Today I am grateful for sweet tea in a blue pitcher, blue water, summer, and swimming on a day when one of your favorite people returns.

a lot of people

It is a race and you can't imagine how good or not so good you are at barely completing it until you hang with other racers. These people who like the weather and the scene. They are healthy people who know where to throw their trash and you think, I'd like to be these people.

We sit with him at the bar after he brings an extra plate of fish. Two people you respect and admire on the day after he said, "You just tell the truth and don't worry about it."

So the truth is I am grateful for people, a lot of people. A whole lot of people. Magosh, people.

how I know you

Three thousand two hundred feet within a mile from beginning to end. What is it to look at that? Be faced with that in the morning or worse yet toward the end of the day? Surely, this is what it would sound like to climb it.

I want to tell him it's okay to give up but surely he knows that and who am I for not believing he can.



Today I am grateful for that feeling when you make it to the top or the end of the day and you don't need me to have that. I am grateful for how I know you can silence that mind and take one step at a time.

meet up

It's perfect. He sits on a mountain. I sit on a bench. He is taking a breather. I took one earlier.

"Control your breathing," he says, and you hate it when he does because all of a sudden it is the most obvious thing in the room.


We laugh when he tells the story about the grouse, and how that dang bird sat there on the side of the trail until the very moment he got about even with him. Then. Heart attack.

"I decided something," he says.

"What?" I brace myself for wisdom.

But he just gives sweet love. "When you get here I'm just going to let you lead. I'll stick with you."

"You know how slow. I'll try to be fast."

We laugh.



Today I am grateful for day one of trail training, for signal, for little maps with little tents and a forward moving arrow; for eighty miles to a meal, but that meal dang. I'm excited about that meal.


Short term goal of trail training: To not be so slow.

smiles

I am grateful for the color of his car, what it felt like when their little faces appeared, the smile on his face, the chance to write about it. I think to text him,

Is it too forward to say to a man, "I'd like to make you dinner and draw you a bath or whatever you would like."


And then one of those crazy emoji faces that should be a warning to others.
I think, maybe not, I don't know, but for just one moment he would smile because of something I said. And that makes me smile.




But not the smile she sends me daily. That smile is live giving.

Willis Carrier was a Dreamboat of a Man

It's an Adobe image and possibly the cover. Right now it's the cover and the force of completing a task in air conditioning. Sure, there are a lot of good things and people and on and on but air conditioning. Yes. Air conditioning.



Today I am grateful for how air can be passed through a system of I don't know how to produce what I do know I love.

journal

Two point five miles of simple but hard turf, cleaning the porch, the car, editing photos, composing video, arguing with the smartest person I know and worrying about the week, but I truly am grateful to meet teachers, writers, photographers, musicians, so many talented people. To have plans.

the return, day one

It happens the minute we turn around. Once we decide that it's okay to not meet our goal today, our tears dry up, our legs can not only move, they can help us run. It is the test of who we are as people, and we failed, every last one of us.

1. Backpackers don't cry.


"It's too hard for them."



2. We separate, walk the path alone or in pairs.



"No.  They did great."




3. We leave our shoes on the road thinking they'd be there when we returned.





"I fine," she says as she walks past her shoes. The cheese crackers and going home to mama are the two best things she has heard all week. When she has food and her mama, she's okay.

I tell her, "The hard part of backpacking is how you deal with life is how you deal with the trail. When it's hard, like it was today with deer flies biting Mia's head and a push down a road where you were worried that Mia was being killed by 200 ants, when it's hard like that you may not always be your kindest and most considerate self. I know I'm not."




Today I am grateful to return home, to understand more, and to have a trail bond with some kids.

a letter from one of your homes

I wonder about them, their intent and purpose. Six people, you said, and immediately I thought, they're good. This morning I am listening to him because of you. You're out there, baby.


Today I am grateful for six beautiful people.