December 2, 2023: I am grateful for the light of friendship, of pets like Pearl and intelligent people working on behalf of those without much privilege or power.
December 7, 2023: I am grateful for technology, even if it makes me curse and swear at least once every day.
December 11, 2023: I am grateful for Pearl and for sunshine in Winter.
December 18, 2023: I am grateful for vacuums. I love the felling of a freshly vacuumed space.
December 19, 2023: I am grateful for color–color can bring so much comfort and joy. I’m relying on the benefits of color more every day.
December 31, 2023: I am grateful for Pearl, and for friends who understand Pearl. Maybe because that feels like they understand me. Pearl is an extension of my spirit.
October 9, 2023: I am grateful that I learned how to sew simple things and how to repair clothing.
October 17, 2023: I am grateful for Lisa and Nathaniel. Seeing them at Goodwill tonight made my whole day. {here my typewriter ribbon gave out} I am also thankful for typewriter ribbon.
October 20, 2023: I am immensely grateful for cotton, and all the people involved with growing, harvesting, dying and sewing pieces of clothing that I wear.
October 24, 2023: I am grateful for having a mop, because that means I have a floor to clean, and that means I have a home.
October 25, 2023: I am so grateful for friends and co workers that I can invite over for cocktails.
September 2: I am grateful for melons and the ones who grow them.
September 4: I am so grateful for walks along the river with friends, both human and canine.
September 5: I am grateful for my landlord, David Livingston.
September 8: I am grateful for friends who walk with me when I really need their help. Friends who are also doing the work of speaking truth and who communicate well.
September 9: I am grateful I was not hit by the motorcycle that did not stop as I was crossing the street in the crosswalk.
September 11: I am grateful for these plums from a friend of a friend’s garden and also for this Oregon geode, cut and polished by a friend who is moving away.
I am grateful I know what to do when I see a dog in a dark vehicle on a hot summer day, with very little ventilation.
September 12: I am grateful to have found this professional french fry cutter second hand. Now I can make my own sweet potato fries in the oven.
September 18: I am grateful for this down comforter, King Size, for my Queen size bed.
September 19: I am grateful that when I took Pearl’s medicine accidentally this morning , I did not suffer ill effects (or start barking).
September 21: I am grateful to collaborate with Janet on her mural design at church. The opportunity to be a part of her art like this is a gift.
September 22: I am grateful for friends with gardens. I’m also grateful for handmade wooden drums and googly eyes.
September 26: I am grateful that I have been given the opportunity to work with and spend time with kids. They are the best version of humans.
September 29: I am grateful to live in a relatively quiet town, with relatively short rush hour spurts.
September 30: I am grateful for this brilliant Fall day.
August 3, 2023: I am grateful for friends who will drive me places I do NOT want to go, but need to go.
August 4, 2023: I am grateful for washing machines that work.
August 12, 2023: I am grateful for my dog Pearl and her Squirrel Scout friends.
August 17, 2023: I am grateful for lawns, projectors and ping pong tables.
August 18, 2023: I am grateful for cool morning walks through the trees with friends and our four legged friends. I am grateful for a good and a surprising dog who can scale a 4 ft. cement wall without any trouble.
August 20, 2023: I am grateful for an upstairs neighbor who is also a friend. Her kindness includes inviting me to do my laundry at her apartment when mine is broken.
August 21, 2023: I am grateful for smooth paved roads between my dad’s house and my home.
August 25, 2023: I am so grateful for the Willamette River. And the Great Blue Heron that I see there.
August 29, 2023: I am grateful for retirement accounts and potential home loans.
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.
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.
May 1, 2023: I am grateful my eyes can see and my feet can take me places I want to go. (how’s that?)
May 8, 2023: I am grateful I can spend time visiting with my dad during this season of his life. Pearl is also grateful to sit on his lap.
May 10, 2023: I am grateful for Pearl. She keeps me on my toes. When she sleeps on the bed with me, I am comforted. I feel very lonely when she decides to sleep in her own bed.
May 11, 2023: I am grateful for Crystal Lake Park and the native plants that grow there– Fringe Cup, Native Plum, Trillium, Solomon’s Seal, Hawthorn.
May 12, 2023: I am grateful for old friends and neighbors who stay in touch with me and who invite me to the Uke Cabaret.
May 13, 2023: I am grateful for honest friends who acknowledge when things are painful and hard to understand.
May 15, 2023: I am grateful for challenges in life because it means I am continuing to grow. I am grateful for parents who wanted to help others and who taught me to care for others.
May 17, 2023: I am grateful that I grew up camping–Metolious, Beverly Beach, Seal Rock, Drift Creek. It’s not easy to get reservations these days and it seems so complicated. I am truly grateful for all the times I’ve had the chance to wake up in the cool, clean air and sleep in the comforting nest of a sleeping bag.
May 19, 2023: I am grateful for friends who share meals with me. Also, for friends who drive me through traffic jams without getting aggravated.
May 20, 2023: I am grateful for cool water on a hot day–the river and the misters at a friend’s yard in the evening.
May 26, 2023: I am grateful that I have learned I have no control over many, many things in this life–but that I can control or direct more than I think I can.
May 27, 2023: I am grateful for music–harmonicas, guitars and washboards; singing swine; dancing uninhibitedly with children.
May 30, 2023: I am grateful for the person who donated three pair of FLAX pants in my size to the Humane Society Thrift Store. I really love them.
April 5, 2023: I am grateful for friends that share food–taco salad–and watch good moves (Fantastic Mr. Fox) to help celebrate my 53rd year here.
April 6, 2023: I am grateful, so grateful, for Robert the laundry delivery person for the office below me. On my loneliest of days, he shows the face of God to my low spirit by stopping his work, sitting on his van step to give Pearl a treat and talk with me. I like to imagine God would do this very same thing, even on the busiest of days.
April 8, 2023: I am grateful for friends who encouraged me to keep going when I felt positive I could not.
April 10, 2023: I am grateful to have reached a point in my life at which I’m learning to leave cut flowers in the vase a little longer. . . even as the petals begin to collect on the table and dry. I’m finally learning there is beauty in aging and a certain grace in death.
April 13, 2023: I am grateful that I am getting better at recognizing grief when I see it, instead of mistaking it for anger or sadness. This does not remedy those feelings but helps me make sense of my internal landscape.
April 16, 2023: I am grateful for mornings because they bring me a chance to start over. . . to start again.
April 21, 2023: I am grateful for Nathaniel because he is a delightful little human and he can really make me laugh. He also gives lovely hugs.
April 23, 2023: I am grateful for Pearl. Almost every day she challenges me and keeps me on my toes.
April 25, 2023: I am grateful for this sweet clay whistle in the shape of a whale and which fits so perfectly in my palm. I love that I found it a second-hand shop near me and I love both of her flippers–the one that remains whole and the one that has broken off.
April 27, 2023: I am grateful that I can step out of my apartment and find more friends than threats on any given day.
April 28, 2023: I am grateful that I have no idea what surprise or delight is just around the corner. . . like this tiny, hand-knit frog in his sweater and holding a tiny Pearl-like dog.
April 29, 2023: I am grateful for the unusual set of stairs that lead up to my apartment. My friend recently told me that they may help me live longer. So far Pearl has been able to manage them also.
Jaqui Eicher 