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My Type of Gratitude List, No. 6

July 1, 2023: I am grateful for the number one, which does not exist on this typewriter. I use the Roman Numeral. Of course this leaves me so grateful that I am able to improvise.

July 4, 2023: I am grateful for friends who understand my sensitivity to sound as well as Pearl’s special sensitivities. This is a challenging day for us and I am grateful for friends who respect us and understand.

July 5, 2023: I am grateful for language. Also, I am grateful for a certain 2 year old who loves language so much that the words cocoon and raccoon, when said together, makes him laugh.

July 10, 2023: I am grateful for children who tell me what they think. I trust children to be real with me, which means when one tells me I smile ‘like God’ I feel like I’ve been given a gift.

July 12, 2023: I am grateful for walls. Being able to paint on them as a canvas brings me great joy.

July 17, 2023: I am grateful for wood, bicycle spokes, rake tines and railroad tracks, not to mention the trains that ride them. All of these materials and tools make good ingredients for kalimbas (if you know a creative soul who knows how to make them).

July 18, 2023: I am grateful for the ocean and sea life; for the moon that creates the tide; for the sun.

July 21, 2023: I am grateful for toilets. Life would be shitty without them.

July 22, 2023: I am grateful for antibiotics.

July 24, 2023: I am grateful for avocados and those who harvest them.

July 25, 2023: I am grateful for perfect, ripe blueberries.

July 26, 2023: I am grateful for rivers and the water that defines them.

July 27, 2023: I am grateful for tea, and Japanese made glass tea pots that allow me to watch the leaves unfurl.

July 31, 2023: I am grateful for fresh figs, ripe and straight out of my friend’s yard to my door. I have never tasted candy so delicious.

My Type of Gratitude List, No. 5

June 2, 2023: I am grateful that I can walk out my door and find friends to walk with at lunch time. I am also grateful for friends who ‘feed’ me names of other writers like A.R. Ammons and John Steinbeck to learn from. Steinbeck I knew, but never read. Ammons I never knew, but will as soon as I acquire his book, Tape, which was originally written on a roll of adding machine tape, just like this.

June 7, 2023: I am grateful for mornings that I get to wake up and visit Nathaniel. He is a bright spot in my life.

June 8, 2023: I am grateful for my friend Sara — she is creative, kind, smart and loves animals as much as I do. I have learned a lot from her and the friendship we share.

June 10, 2023: I am grateful for change and all the unexpected blessings it may bring.

June 11, 2023: I am grateful for Pearl. She is such a sweet, fuzzy girl with lots of love.

June 12, 2023: I am grateful for my friend Wolfgang who is one of the most kind and considerate people I know.

June 14, 2023: I am grateful for this typewriter — I enjoy using it to record gratitude. Muscle memory lets me remember good days at Western Mennonite School, like using my watch to reflect sunlight toward John Fillmore.

June 15, 2023: I am grateful for fresh peas from the garden, with lemon, ginger and garlic. I am also grateful for the friends who serve them in a cast iron skillet.

June 19, 2023: I am grateful for cool summer mornings. Pearl and I get to walk in a quiet city, before traffic begins to intensify. She sniffs, I watch store deliveries. I am also grateful for Juneteenth. I am inspired by the strength of my black and brown American friends.

June 21, 2023: I am grateful for good memories of growing up on Eicher Road — playing in the creek, picking mint for iced tea, eating summer sausage sandwiches with Dad in the field he was baling that day. Grandma’s house was only a hop, skip and jump away. I loved her house.

June 25, 2023: I am grateful for water color art. Looking at it makes me feel somehow refreshed.

June 26, 2023: I am grateful for garbage service workers who take what we’ve thrown out, allowing us to distance ourselves from our own messes. Also, these important workers could have their hands crushed in the machines they work with. . . like today. May your hand heal swiftly.