“One of the lovely ways to pray is to take your body out into the landscape and to be still in it.” – John O’Donohue

How true this is! I have some card decks that I shuffle through each morning, after my meditation, and getting outside into nature was the message I received loud and clear today. The problem is, it is cloudy and overcast, and I want to stay cozied up in my pajamas and woolen aqua poncho from Yunnan on my sweet slipper chair in my office. (II want to give this place of refuge a name, but I haven’t settled on one yet. Also, it’s still full of boxes and there is no art work up yet, so it’s a work in process. What IS here are plants, a doggie bed, our growing LP collection, and lamps, so I am halfway there.)

Last night, I absolutely did not feel like a walk to Emily’s beach, which is where many of our conversations take place. I also had no desire to tend to my burgeoning garden, which has gone feral with all the rain recently. On top of this, I have a tetchy hip and sciatica these days, not making any forays particularly comfortable. Did I take my walk? Yes, I did. Did I tend to my garden? No, I did not.

I have written about gratitude through grief almost continuously since Emily’s earthly departure, yet I find much to complain about when I allow myself the opportunity. Complaints and dissatisfaction with what is reality is our natural tendency. I’m bursting with them – foremost that I am a daughter down. What a dreadful way to think and dare to write. But there it is.

My mama in heaven granted me a heart that is capable of holding much hope and optimism, though my natural tendencies lead me down a different path. So let me try a turnaround:

• I have two daughters: one with me here, whom I love and adore, and another who is ever-present and with whom I have never communed so deeply as I do now
• I am a fairy god mother, with a bonus daughter: Charlotte’s recently-found biological sister, Mollie. She lights up my life!
• The rain is preventing wildfires and growing my garden and enriching this paradisiacal rain forest in which I live
• My commitment to Emily that I will get to the beach every single day and meet her there is making me fitter, a lover of the sea in all of its variations, and a dedicated dog walker
• I have rain gear and grew up in this climate; there is no bad weather, only bad clothes
• I won’t have to drench myself watering the garden today because that’s already been taken care of
• I have books calling to be read, a tub that holds me perfectly (Most are too long for me and I “slip under” when bubbles are involved)
• I have soft lamps glowing in each room of the house so every area can be a retreat

So…no, I will not go outside just yet; I will stay snuggled in my vast cabin of a house, drinking coffee and “plorking” (playing and working) on my online course I am creating, and I will ease myself out the door this afternoon in whatever regalia I need to garb myself in. 

My little life is so large and so charged with electric serendipity from my ever-beloved Emily, who is always within my reach. This is the gratitude I grasp at and hold tightly to.