Grateful for this morning

and a new song

“I’m grateful for this morning!” Georgia exclaimed to me as I sat behind her at our front window, the long sheer curtains pulled behind me as our ‘cape,’ per her instructions, while she showed me the puzzle she was putting together. 

She continued on, “Mom! We forgot to do our gratitude list! What are you grateful for?”

We’ve renewed our morning gratitude lists this past week and my 3 year old daughter is the best reminder. We haven’t been writing them down, just sharing aloud the different things we’re grateful for. Each other, our house, our cat Nola, the changing seasons (I said I love fall, G said she loves feeling chilly in the winter), Georgia’s wonderful school and community, “going to Michigan and playing the ball game with Mama mama.”

It has been an essential reminder, when the outside world feels out of control, impossible to understand and full of violence, hate and fear… that it also is full of beauty, magic and love, especially right here in our home and family. 

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how my phone, this small device in my hand, is my portal to everything ‘out there’. It’s my portal to good, to humor, to art, to music, to family, to love, as well as to violence, horror, hate and the worst of humanity. It’s also my way to connect, communicate, share, and create work so I can provide for myself and my family. It’s up to me to control how I consume it and I’ve long had a habit of consuming the worst. I’ve always felt responsible or pulled to know as much as possible, but especially, to know the bad things. The way people are hurting. So then, I can hurt with them. My husband has lovingly and semi-jokingly called me ‘bad news bears’. But I feel like I can’t help it. I am pulled to it. Because if I don’t, I am somehow betraying them.

When I walk through this logic, I realize it’s not the most helpful, but it’s the way I’ve been wired for whatever reason. I look for the underdogs, the oppressed, the ones tossed away and I feel deeply for them. I’m aware of them and their suffering. I also look for danger, the ways it could be coming. Maybe that’s part of my empathy and how I channel feeling into my songs and my writing but maybe I also could learn, it’s okay to take time away. It’s okay to intentionally look for joy, not dwelling on the darkness, because unfortunately, it is always there. It’s not a betrayal, it’s not choosing blissful ignorance, it’s an essential way to keep connecting to the reasons why I care and therefore keep caring. 

This week, as I’ve struggled with what feels like almost naive disappointment and heartache, I’ve looked around my home and realized I have different work now. I can still be aware, feel for, empathize, look out for. And I will. And I will teach my children this too. But my work now is them. My family. Showing them love, light, kindness, joy, exuberance and yes of course that pain, heartache, hurt is all there too. But the good is always there as well. And the good starts right here. 

If I recognize this, when I look around in the morning and think what I’m grateful for, the information I’m bringing in is what’s right in front of me, not all that is out there. I’m not betraying the world by focusing on what’s right here, right now. And most importantly, for raising these little babies, I want to look around and have the information I share with them be: a warm, safe home, pancakes cooking on the stove, Aaron carefully brewing me the 100th coffee concoction he’s tried in the past 7 months of this pregnancy to see if I can drink it without gagging, my daughter dancing in the living room shouting, “come play with me mama!”

How lucky we are for this love, these small joys, the changing seasons, each other.

All is well right here, right now.

It starts right here. 

I’m grateful for this morning too, Georgia. 

A helpful reminder from today’s page from The Daily Stoic: 

ALWAYS THE SAME

(an excerpt)

“One of the most striking things about history is just how long human beings have been doing what they do. Though certain attitudes and practices have come and gone, what’s left are people – living, dying, loving, fighting, crying, laughing. 

Breathless media reports or popular books often perpetuate the belief that we’ve reached the apex of humanity, or that this time, things really are different. The irony is that people have believed that for centuries. 

Strong people resist this notion. They know that with a few exceptions, things are the same as they’ve always been and always will be. You’re just like the people who came before you, and you’re but a brief stopover until the people just like you who will come after. The earth abides forever, but we will come and go.”

---

Wishing you all love and that we keep on trying to know and love each other better, with less harm. As always, these essays are written quickly, from the heart, without an editor. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. And thank you as always for your readership, responses, subscriptions.

---

Aligned with these times, I have a new song coming out this Friday, Nov. 15th. I wrote it with my friend Zach Berkman last May when I had just found out I was pregnant. We were discussing a lot of heavy topics: parenthood, loss, illness, Gaza and Israel, political divisions, tribalism. We started talking about how we stay open, why we choose to bring more people into our lives, how we decide to have more children, how we take care of each other, how and why we refrain from letting our hearts close, how we still love those we vehemently disagree with. 

Below is the song in full for paid subscribers. Thank you again.