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Pickle Me This

June 20, 2016

Things To Be Grateful For

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1. On Thursday night, I emailed good friends in the neighbourhood and told them I was feeling spiritually disheartened. “What would really make me feel better,” I wrote, “would be if you came over and drank beer in my backyard tomorrow night and ate pizza.” That I have good friends in my neighbourhood to whom I can make such requests is something to be grateful for. That everyone said yes is another, and they all rolled up the next evening, their children in tow, and we drank far too much in our beautiful backyard under the shade of the majestic silver maple (which is actually a character in my novel, by the way). It was a perfectly wonderful evening underlining our family’s enormous wealth in terms of friendship. Which is the greatest kind of wealth a person could ever hope for.

2. I am grateful to Maggie Smith’s poem, “Good Bones”, which I read around the table on Friday night (either before or after I started singing a karaoke version of “How Will I Know?” on my phone. I cannot recall exactly). I am grateful that such a poem exists, and that it went viral, and that poems go viral at all.  A neat thing is that tomorrow signed broadsheets of the poem go on sale with a portion of proceeds going towards a group supporting LGBTQ youth in Orlando. I think details will probably be here.

3. I am grateful for a Saturday spent hungover but not painfully so, when I got to read two whole newspapers and Amy Jones’ novel in my hammock.

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4. I am grateful to be able to celebrate 11 years of marriage with my excellent husband, who I like and love so much more than I did on our wedding day, and I was certainly fond of him them. I feel so blessed for all the time we’ve had together and the history we’ve created, and I look forward to the future and all the time ahead…and it will never be enough.

5. I am grateful that when our littlest daughter threw up in the restaurant at Father’s Day Brunch, she did so fairly discreetly and that we were able to get the food packaged to go. And that even though Father’s Day really did totally suck, that my children’s father didn’t sulk as much about that as I might have in his shoes. I am also grateful that I have learned to be a better partner by thinking about the hypothetical ways he’d support me in a given situation and sending such support his way. I like that he makes me a better person.

6. I am grateful that no one has vomited on me since 4am this morning. And that when Iris stayed home from school today, she spent the whole day sleeping and I got so much work done I wouldn’t have done other circumstances and she woke up feeling better. We’re hoping for a better night’s sleep tonight.

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7. I am grateful for the thoughtfulness of blogs. I am so grateful for Rebecca Woolf, Shawna Lemay, Sarah from Edge of Evening, and Lindy Mechefske, and so many others… I think that the thoughtfulness and nuance implicit to blogging have never been more urgent (and if you write a post with tips about engaging with brands, I will unfollow you).

8. I am grateful there is such a thing as lavender. And fifteen ways to use it.

9. I am grateful for the news clip I heard tonight on As It Happens as British MP Rachel Reeves delivered a tribute to her murdered colleague, Jo Cox, and talked about the woman she’d encountered in a coffee shop this week who’d said she’d never met Cox but that learning about her life made her want to be a better person. I imagine that sentiment is widely shared. I think this is excellent and true.

10. And finally, I am grateful that the heat of the day has finally broken, and for the fresh breeze drifting through the window right now.

4 thoughts on “Things To Be Grateful For”

  1. Drew says:

    Well this is lovely.
    And I’m grateful I found you and your blog, via Shawna Lemay (for whom I’m also grateful).

    1. Kerry says:

      Oh, yes, we should all be grateful for Shawna Lemay. Always. Thank you for reading!

  2. Mary says:

    A beautiful and heart-felt post. A blessing for all of us from John O’Donohue:

    On the day when
    The weight deadens
    On your shoulders
    And you stumble,
    May the clay dance to balance you.

    And when your eyes
    Freeze behind
    The gray window
    And the ghost of loss
    Gets into you,
    May a flock of colors Indigo, red, green
    And azure blue
    Come to awaken in you
    A meadow of delight.

    When the canvas frays
    In the curragh of thought
    And a stain of ocean
    Blackens beneath you
    May there come across the waters
    A path of yellow moonlight
    To bring you safely home.

    May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
    May the clarity of light be yours,
    May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
    May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

    And so may a slow
    Wind work these words
    Of love around you
    An invisible cloak
    To mind your life.

  3. Shawna says:

    Grateful right back at you.

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