beholden
Thalia skipped into the kitchen. “Do you know it’s World Gratitude Day?”
Nia swallowed her first sip of coffee. “It’s also National Miniature Golf Day, Pecan Cookie Day, and… Escapology Day?”
“I’m grateful for the fourleg, who reminds us daily to embrace life with a spirit of fun and adventure!” said Cal. “Isn’t it funny… How she’s collecting fallen hickory nuts from the driveway as if they are jewels?”
“LOVE YOU HENNY!” Thalia called from her seat at the table. “… And then the goof secretly carries her golden nuggets to the family room carpet for safe keeping. Does she think she’s a squirrel?”
Words from Typist:
The first person who comes to mind when I hear the word GRATITUDE is my friend Chris Palmore from Gratitudespace.
He dedicates his life to making lives better… by inspiring us to shift our focus from lack to abundance. I’m ever so grateful for his invitation to contribute stories to his books Dear Gratitude and Dear 2020. Stepping out with his encouragement built the confidence I needed to publish books of my own. Thanks Chris!
This morning the cedar tree outside my kitchen window is aflutter with a flock of cedar waxwings. Quite a sight!
I am filled with gratitude for life… even the tricky bits.
I bet you are, too!
If you care to share in comments, we’d love to hear about something you are thankful for!
I think of Chris too when I think of GRATITUDE. It is a practice I work on daily. Some days are more challenging but there is always gratitude in my journey, even "the tricky bits".
Very grateful that I found your writing in 2022 and we became friends. I believe this was not an accident. You have added to my list of things to my gratitude list.
Before dinner, we each say three things that we are grateful for. Long stories and vague gratitudes are not preferred - we do have to eat (too long) and it is a time to share(too short). Also, it must be since the last 24 hours. I am grateful that this ritual exists in our house.
P.s. Autocorrect does not like the plural of "gratitudes" suggesting that since it is non-countable there is not a plural. [A collection of gratitudes such as this, however, is an exception for pluralization.] I think it's probably that gratitude is (in general) non-countable. Otherwise, we'd probably measure and optimize the humanity right out of it.