St. Patrick’s Day at the Pinnacles

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Pinnacles 6We finished up a week in the desert (Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park) with a bit of green for St. Patrick’s Day: a hike at the Pinnacles before returning home. Gorgeous rolling hills, dramatic rocks, splendid wildflowers: It’s a place we discovered 28 years ago, and have gone back to many times. Here, once again, is an essay about one of my favorite places, with a few new pictures.

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It’s a steep haul up the High Peaks Trail, especially when you’re seven months pregnant with your first child. But back then, giddy with promise, my husband Jonathan and I floated past the massive boulders of Pinnacles National Park.

Cresting the summit, baby bulk and all, I relished the double take of the buff, shirtless teenagers loitering atop the rocks. They paused mid-swagger to glance in horror at my swollen belly as I conquered the mountain in my smocked maternity top.

Our family has returned to the Pinnacles again and again, drawn by the massive cliffs, soaring spires, and lush spring wildflowers. Leaving behind the fragmented kaleidoscope of daily life, we are calmed by the reliable sameness of the timeless, indifferent peaks.

Yet even in this constant landscape, change is under way. The fantastic rock formations are the remains of an ancient volcano ravaged by erosion, creeping steadily up the Salinas Valley along the San Andreas Fault. I am grateful that only subtle clues dispel the illusion of permanence. A precariously balanced boulder has fallen from its perch. Spatters of chartreuse and rust lichen toil as alchemists, turning rock to soil. Their magic allows monkey flowers the color of apricots to bloom from dirt pockets hidden in solid stone.Pinnacles, Monkeyflower

Time has worked its alchemist’s magic on us as well. Two years after our initial trip, we camp at the Pinnacles, weighed down by the accoutrements of toddlerhood — diapers, goldfish crackers, juice boxes, a travel crib. Emma, whose in utero view had been obscured, now enjoys the scenery from the baby backpack that digs into our shoulders as we trudge along the dusty trail.

When we return again, the campground has been paved over for more parking. This time, we have two young daughters in tow, barely out of diapers. But Emma and Ally are definitely into sit-down strikes at the prospect of hiking more than a few hundred yards. Not wishing to fight an uphill battle, we content ourselves with the flat path at the base of the mountains so the girls can splash in the creek. Jonathan, impatient with the meandering pace of childhood, sprints to the summit while the girls and I delight in wild bouquets and rocky forts along the valley floor.Pinnacles, Lupine

The next time the Pinnacles beckon, Emma and Ally gamely traverse the High Peaks Trail. They are enchanted by poppies sprouting out of boulders, the rock that looks like a camel. The girls nibble on miner’s lettuce and strategic bribes of chocolate, scampering around the summit while their tired parents lag behind. Rocks and children tame each other: whininess turns to exultation, forbidding stone becomes an infinite playground.Pinnacles, Clematis

Although the incline invites vertigo, the girls clamber up and down, up and down the footholds chiseled into the rock, swinging from the metal banister as if nature and the Park Service had fashioned monkey bars just for them. Jonathan and I must squeeze through the narrow cliff passage in an awkward crouch. But it is just the right size for Emma and Ally, who march through boldly upright, giggling as their crooked parents bump their heads against the rocky overhang.

We are not the only ones who find the Pinnacles a good place for families. Condors, recently reintroduced to the park, build nests in the sheltered crevices. While they teach their young how to catch thermals, we show ours how to catch the shine of buttercups on their chins in the warm sunlight.

Now our daughters have taken flight too, soaring and wavering in their own grown-up landscapes. Alone again, Jonathan and I make our pilgrimage to drink in the riotous wildflowers and steadfast rocks whenever time allows. As always, we stop in Soledad’s Mexican grocery for tortas — soft white rolls dripping with spicy carnitas.Jonathan in Soledad eating torta, March 2016

Soledad, gateway to the Pinnacles, has sprung up even faster than Emma and Ally. Twenty-eight years ago, it consisted of the grocery, a prison, a few dusty streets of dilapidated houses, and a fleabag hotel with a cracked, empty swimming pool. Now the highway billboard reads: “It’s happening in Soledad.”  Vineyards dot the hillsides, and a tony resort lies adjacent to the Pinnacles. Kids from tidy homes with manicured yards swarm the soccer field at the spanking new school. A vast shopping center dwarfs the original Main Street, but we still head to our old Mexican grocery.

Fueled by succulent tortas and memories, Jonathan and I start up the High Peaks Trail once more. Although stiffer and a little creaky, we ascend quickly past the boulders and apricot blooms of monkey flower.

Again and again, we come back to ourselves in the shelter of the enduring cliffs.Pinnacles 3

 

 

 

Outward Bound/Homeward Bound

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eastbound amtrakAt 9:15 on a Sunday morning, we put our daughter Emma on the Amtrak train that will take her from the West Coast to the East Coast.

Then we sail back home on the freeway, strangely clear of the traffic that normally chokes it.

Less than half an hour after hugging Emma goodbye, I am at my yoga class, my routine barely interrupted by her departure.

When I emerge, all stretched out and relaxed, I wonder how Emma’s doing. Has she gotten up yet to stretch her legs? Where is she now? The train has surely hurtled beyond the bay, beyond the suburbs we consider home turf, possibly beyond the great wetlands near Sacramento that attract millions of migrating birds as they touch down between Canada and Mexico.

Our migrating daughter will touch down in Chicago, then New York before continuing, airborne, on the last leg of her journey to St. Petersburg, Russia, for an artist’s residency.

At home I make salad and grilled cheese, using the leftover bread from the Italian restaurant we went to for our last dinner together the night before. It’s delicious. I wonder if Emma has broken into her stash of salami sandwiches. Her food must last for three days. Has she eaten any PB and Js out of boredom, or homesickness?

It’s not as if Emma’s alone in the wilderness, though. There’s a dining car, vending machines and even cafes at the stations where the train stops. Emma has money—not much, but enough—to augment her supplies.

As I eat my lunch, I pick up my book. Has Emma begun the one she selected for her train ride—Wild, Cheryl Strayed’s memoir about losing and finding herself on the Pacific Crest Trail. Strayed really was alone in the wilderness, and ran out of food and money—even her hiking boots! The book’s a good choice for my daughter, who’s about the same age as Strayed was when she made her trek. Emma is not as poorly equipped or facing such daunting challenges in her quest for self, but she, too, seeks something equally elusive and necessary.

At night I go into Emma’s room, relishing the unfamiliar tidiness, mourning the emptiness. As I strip her sheets, I wonder if Emma is settling down for the night—the first of two spent upright in Coach. She might treat herself to a meal in Chicago, but she is too poor for a sleeper berth and young enough still to withstand the price her body will pay for lack of a real bed.

I text Emma, wishing her goodnight as she glides through Nevada and Utah in the darkness. I do not hear back right away, but in the morning Emma’s text alerts us that the snow-covered Sierra was indeed beautiful. No doubt the upcoming Rockies will be too.

I can’t remember when Emma will arrive in Denver; Chicago’s ETA is even fuzzier, Penn Station’s a complete mystery. I am beginning to regret that I discarded the Amtrak brochure with the schedule of all the stops and times—so linear and straightforward, so easy to track.

I am losing track of my daughter. And even if Emma had a smartphone, which she doesn’t, I have not the will nor the desire nor the technological savvy to keep her under constant GPS surveillance. She needs to roam beyond our reach.

We go about our usual lives–dinner, Netflix, laundry, work–as our daughter travels farther away. Soon Emma’s across the mountains, across the prairie, changing trains in Chicago, swept up in the swirl of New York City. We text and talk many times, of course. There are three “Have fun, be safe, goodbye, I love you!” calls alone on her last stateside day. Then Emma boards the plane, lands in Russia. At least Skype and email will keep the connection strong until she returns.

Our forebears, who made this journey in the opposite direction, were not so lucky. The three continents and an ocean they crossed opened many doors, but one closed shut behind them. Home remained as a dream, a memory, a yearning to those who ventured forth—while those left going about their days prayed that their loved ones had enough to eat, a place to sleep, and home carried always in their hearts.

 

Nature’s Valentines

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Sunrise from downtown San Anselmo

Chocolate is fattening, florist mark-ups are exorbitant, and restaurant reservations are impossible to get (not to mention that your Groupon won’t be honored even if you do snag a table).

Fortunately, nature supplies a lot of wonderful valentines for free, at least for those of us lucky enough to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The run-up to Valentine’s Day here is always my favorite time of year because it’s our spring, with an incredible display bursting forth.

Here are some of the confections I’ve been enjoying on my walks around town this week:

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What is your favorite no-calorie Valentine freebie?

The Paradox of Hope

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HopeAt a recent storytelling event ushering in the New Year, audience members were asked about their resolutions: “To give up hope only to regain it,” one woman said.

This echoed something I’d heard just weeks before at a clinical meeting I facilitate, when I asked the staff to share something they were doing for self-care. A colleague who unfailingly sees the best in everyone surprised us all by saying she had given up hope, and was thus no longer so prone to disappointment.

Hope, we are told, springs eternal, so such dissents from the cultural imperative to uphold it are rare. Nowadays it often seems the more difficult things become, the more we are forbidden to feel hopeless. We are urged to look on the bright side, keep gratitude journals, embrace the lessons of hardship. And no wonder: It is difficult to live in despair.

Exercises cultivating resilience and hope can bring genuine relief, broaden perspective, even pull one back from the brink. They can also preserve relationships. Being around someone who despairs is also difficult, and in lieu of outright fleeing, it is tempting to extend a lifeline. Yet who really escapes—the person feeling hopeless, or the person who cannot bear to listen? Those who are unable or unwilling to be coaxed out of sorrow might soon find themselves alone.

Our clients know this (or at least the lucky ones do). They worry about burdening or alienating others, fear wallowing in hopelessness. So they bravely try to focus on the positive, often with felicitous results. Yet the more people feel compelled through internal or external expectations to disguise despair, the more pinched they become. It is as if they squeeze themselves into emotional Spanx to keep everything contained and looking good.

Psychotherapy offers the relief that comes from shedding such constraints, breathing freely, and being one’s natural self. The terrain of hope and despair is tricky, though: therapists must help clients navigate the depths of unbearable pain without stranding them there. Often we see ourselves as the guardians of hope. Yet we must never impose it. We would do well to remember the famous story of a patient in analysis who said that the only time he felt hope was when his analyst agreed with him that it was hopeless, but that they would carry on together anyway.

It is when we make room for hopelessness that hope, too, might find a little space.

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What are your thoughts on the balance between hope and hopelessness?
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Originally published in Impulse, an online publication of the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

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Wishing Well

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Wishing Well JPG

The picture above is a wishing well in San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden. “Wishing Well” is also my title for an essay of mine that just appeared in the Washington Post. That’s a terrible title for our Internet age of tags and clicks and not caring whatsoever about clever titles with double allusions that mean nothing to anyone who hasn’t read the essay. Which why would they because what the hell is it about, anyway? Why take a risk on something that sounds confusing and suspiciously literary?

So the Washington Post’s title gets right down to it: “My legacy to my daughters: BRCA and cancer?” That’s right: My essay is about an unwelcome legacy in our family; what it’s like as a mother dealing with the fact that I might have passed on the gene that greatly elevates the risk of breast and ovarian cancer to my daughters; and how they feel about getting tested for the BRCA mutation. If you haven’t read my essay, you might want to do so now before reading the rest of this post. (In other words: “Spoiler Alert!”)

The essay ends on an ambiguous note, which prompted a Washington Post reader to ask, “But where is the ending? What about Emma?”

What about Emma, indeed? It’s so hard not to know what happened! At the time I wrote the essay, and at the considerably later time when it was accepted, we did not know Emma’s BRCA status because she did not want to know. Those of us who dwell in the BRCA land of No Good Choices in the Face of Risk swing back and forth between twin slogans: “Knowledge is Power” and “Ignorance is Bliss.” Emma chose the latter, as did I for a while, until my own uterine cancer forced me to come into knowledge I did not necessarily want to possess. So I understood Emma’s decision, even though it made me anxious. (If she had decided otherwise, I also would have been anxious.)

This is how things were for three years. Then Emma changed her mind about testing. Partly time softens us for readiness. But what really made the difference for Emma was an NPR report about how women who work with someone with breast cancer are less likely to get their own routine screenings because they are frightened seeing the disease up close and personal. Their denial snapped Emma out of hers (another reason you should support NPR).

Less than two weeks before my essay was published, Emma learned her test results. She does not have the BRCA mutation. We cannot believe our good fortune that both daughters have dodged this bullet. The wishing well granted my wish!

I debated long and hard about whether to contact the Washington Post editor to add an epilogue. After all, as the reader’s plea reminds us, we like to know how things end. We especially like a happy ending, and I feel a bit churlish to have withheld it.

But it so easily could have gone the other way. I had also seriously debated whether or not I would ask the editor to pull the essay altogether had Emma’s news been bad.

In the end, I decided to leave the essay as it stood. The point, after all, is that legacy is multi-faceted, we rarely know the ending of anything, and we must bear the anxiety of not knowing (especially as parents). The flip of the coin went our way this time, but it won’t for many facing the same dilemma, and it won’t for us other times. That’s just how life goes.

But for you, dear Shrinkrapped reader, I’m happy to provide a happy ending to this particular story, and happier still to have one to provide!

 

 

 

Upstairs, Downstairs

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StairsOne of the advantages of living in a five-story house is that you don’t need a Fitbit to make sure you’re getting in your 10,000 steps a day. We’ve stayed pretty spry just taking out the trash, hauling in the groceries, and running up and downstairs retrieving little odds and ends we constantly forget like books, dirty dishes, and car keys.

The stairs are not so great for my father-in-law, though, who has reached the age where walking down the corridor to the dining hall at his assisted living facility is a big challenge. He’d hauled himself up 19 stairs from our garage to our dining room for Thanksgiving, but the prospect of a repeat performance for Christmas looked dubious. And at age 95, who knew how many Christmases he had left? Since this was the first time in five years both our daughters would be home for the holidays, it felt even more important to celebrate together in traditional style—tree, stockings, lights, decorations, and Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.

“No problem,” I said to my husband. “Surely the four of us can carry him up the stairs.”

We decided to practice by hoisting Emma, our eldest, in the safety of our living room. Staggering, we dropped her onto the rug in about ten seconds, envisioning the domino effect of three generations meeting with disaster on the stairs into the garage. It was time for Plan B.

“The important thing is that we’re all together,” my mother-in-law and I said to one another, agreeing we’d eat instead at their favorite Chinese restaurant.

Which turned out to be closed on Christmas Day.

My husband made a reservation at a Thai restaurant instead.

In the meantime, my friend Eileen told me about a friend who’d had been carried into his house by firefighters after he was discharged from the hospital with a severely fractured leg.

“You should call the fire department,” Eileen urged.

“You’re kidding! They do that?” I replied, silently thinking, “What a waste of taxpayer money!”

And even if I didn’t think so, my in-laws surely would. I could not imagine them agreeing to such special treatment. We like to joke that they hate to impose on people so much that we won’t know that they’re dead until two weeks after the fact.

Still, I couldn’t let go of the idea, debating it back and forth in my mind, even putting “Call the fire department” on my to-do list. Like most things on my to-do list, there it stayed.

“Enlisting the firemen is a crazy idea, right?” I mused to my daughter. “We’ll be fine at the Thai restaurant, right? The important thing is for all of us to be together.”

Emma nodded.

The following day, my morning walk took me on a route I don’t usually take—one that ends a half a block from our fire station.

“What the hell—no harm in asking,” I said to myself, going in.

“I have a crazy question,” I said to the man at the desk, then explained our situation.

“It’s not crazy at all. We’re a full-service fire station, and that’s what your money supports. We do this all the time.”

My in-laws were surprisingly game.

“Some people might be too embarrassed to be carted up the stairs,” my father-in-law chortled over the phone. “But not me! I think it’s marvelous!”

On Christmas Day, four firefighters met us at the base of our stairs, strapped my father-in-law into a special chair, and deposited him safely in the living room. They arrived precisely at the appointed departure time, and reversed the procedure.Firemen and Grandpa, Christmas 2015

It was the best Christmas ever. Thanks, taxpayers!Jenny and Katie with Grandma and Grandpa, Christmas 2015

And yesterday, to celebrate my father-in-law’s 96th birthday, we all went to his favorite Chinese restaurant, this time without any assistance beyond his portable walker. It was the best birthday celebration ever.Hugh's 96th at Lily Kai

Buche de NO-el

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Buche-De-Noel_1366

Every year I have the intention of making a Buche de Noel for our Christmas Eve feast. And every year I revise my plans as the reality of unwrapped presents, unpolished silver, and undecked halls lays claim to my diminishing time and energy. My daughter tried a few years ago when she was organizing my recipes to curb my hoarding tendencies and delusions by saying, “Get real–when are you ever going to make Buche de Noel with Meringue Mushrooms?” But I stopped her from throwing away the yellowed clipping. A woman can dream, can’t she?

This year, I was determined that my dream would finally become reality. I had more time to prepare, and more help, what with my husband retired and both daughters back in the area. Plus I planned to outsource the meringue mushrooms to the fancy Italian bakery that churns out such delicacies in exchange for a small fortune.

Make that “churned.” Alas, Rulli’s no longer makes meringue mushrooms. No matter. Summoning my inner Martha Stewart, I rummaged through the cupboards for the pastry bags I knew I’d bought long ago, so I could concoct the confections myself.

Except that I had finally donated said pastry bags to the Salvation Army just weeks before (hoarders are correct in thinking that you will come to regret throwing away something you haven’t used in years). I also discovered that, reckless purging of unused household items notwithstanding, I was too late with my culinary dreams for meteorological reasons as well. After four years of drought, the weather forecast promised a week of rain. Too bad every meringue mushroom recipe began, “These should only be made on a dry day.”

But couldn’t I just put real mushrooms on the log? Or just extra “holly” fashioned from mint leaves and cranberries?” So I proceeded undaunted to the Buche proper. That’s when I discovered I would need a candy thermometer. Would a grocery store model suffice, or would I have to fight the crowds at the mall? Reading my ancient clipping and all the online recipes more carefully, I noted the several warnings about not tearing the sponge cake when getting it out of the pan, or rolling it up, or carefully spreading it with buttercream. “A lot of trouble,” wrote more than a few reviewers.

Meanwhile, visions of brownies with orange buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache, Russian teacakes, chocolate crumb bars, and almond filled shortbread danced in my head.

Who was I kidding? Ours was not a sponge cake family anyway, but one with a preference for mainlining dark chocolate and butter.

“We’re not having a Buche de Noel. Not now, not ever,” I announced. “I’m over it.”

Here’s what we had instead:

Liberated from a dream I now know will never be fulfilled, I’m looking ahead to the new year wondering what other fantasies I might jettison—and what other delicious possibilities will take their place.

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Have you ever made a Buche de Noel? What dreams have you relinquished for the better?

The Illusion of Invincibility

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safety_pin_crp1When my daughter was little, my husband and I tried to safeguard her against people who might do her harm. “It’s OK to kick and scream,” we told Emma. “You don’t have to be nice if someone tries to hurt you. Not everyone is a good person.”

“Those bad guys better watch out!” Emma replied. “I’m gonna have safety pins with me, and if they try to get me, I’m just gonna take out my pins and stab them!”

I loved my daughter’s confidence in her strength, her ability to quell her fears by standing up to danger. No matter that her plan for protection was childish folly.

We’re now seeing a similar impulse play out on a national scale.

The New York Times reports that in the wake of the latest mass shootings here and in Paris, Americans are rushing to arm themselves. When something frightening happens, people want to feel safe and in control. Their fear of becoming a victim is transformed by the illusion of invincibility.

The gun lobby and its political minions masterfully exploit this psychological dynamic by stoking fear, then offering a reassuring (though false) “solution” like the one promulgated after 20 six-year-olds were gunned down at Sandy Hook three years ago today. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” proclaimed NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre in response to that horrific massacre.

This sentiment has been echoed by the Republican Presidential contenders in response to more recent mass shootings. The day after the San Bernardino massacre, Ted Cruz proclaimed at a gun rights rally, “you don’t stop bad guys by taking away our guns, you stop bad guys by using our guns.” A couple of months before, Ben Carson essentially blamed the victims of a heavily armed gunman at Umpqua Community College by saying, “I would not just stand there and let him shoot me.”

If only it were that easy!

Yet the research—not to mention law enforcement and military personnel–overwhelmingly contradict this simplistic notion. “Good guys” unloading their weapons against an active shooter in a public space would likely result in greater mayhem and casualties. Guns on alcohol-infused campuses are a recipe for disaster.  The risk of gun deaths from homicide, suicide, or accidental shootings is much higher when there’s a gun in the home. And guns, in the heat of the moment, can turn a “good guy” into a killer instantaneously. More guns mean more gun deaths.

Yet reason doesn’t seem to stand a chance against fear and its exploitation. In the three years since Sandy Hook, Congress has done nothing to enact gun-safety legislation. Although some states have tightened restrictions on guns, many more have actually made it easier to purchase and carry guns.

It’s one thing for my young daughter to fantasize about wielding her safety-pins for protection. But it’s quite another to arm ourselves to stay safe from gun violence. As adults, we should know better.

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Had enough? One of the reasons we have failed to enact more common-sense gun-safety laws is that those who support such measures don’t speak out. You can bet gun- rights advocates don’t make that mistake. Contact your representatives. Rally. Sign petitions. Vote your principles. And check out these organizations that are working hard to make a difference:

Everytown for Gun Safety

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

Newtown Action Alliance

Suicide by Gun

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Means Matter logo

Once again, America is transfixed by a mass shooting. No doubt the list of massacres will grow to encompass other shattered towns and families, evoking fear and horror every time.

Yet almost two-thirds of gun deaths do not make national headlines. These are the more than 21,000 people–many of them teenagers— who every year kill themselves with a gun.

As someone who has worked in the field of suicide prevention for decades, I know that the best way to prevent these tragedies is to restrict access to guns. Current research contradicts the commonly held but false belief that suicidal individuals will just find some other way to kill themselves. In fact, self-destructive feelings are often impulsive and fleeting, dissipating as the crisis passes. Ninety percent of those who survive an attempt never go on to die by suicide. But when guns are involved, the crisis can quickly escalate, precluding safe resolution. Fast and deadly equals no second chances.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, those states with the highest rate of gun ownership also have the highest rates of suicide. Access to lethal means is a far greater risk factor than mental illness. Although some promote the fallacy that a gun in the home makes you safer, the opposite is true. The risk of suicide is two to five times greater for all household members in gun-owning homes. In one study, 82 percent of children 17 and under who shot themselves to death used a gun belonging to a family member. Homes without guns have the lowest suicide rates, but even in homes where firearms are present, risk decreases if they’re properly stored—unloaded and under lock and key.

When it comes to preventing suicide, means matter. We always ask why people kill themselves. But we’re better off focusing on how so many people die.

It’s the guns. If we really want to save lives, restricting easy access to such lethal means is our best approach.

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The statistics cited here are from these sources, which provide a wealth of additional information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/health/blocking-the-paths-to-suicide.html

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/

http://actionallianceforsuicideprevention.org/sites/actionallianceforsuicideprevention.org/files/Reducing%20a%20Suicidal%20Persons%20Access%20to%20Lethal.pdf

 

 

 

 

Out of the (Gratitude) Closet

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Gratitude closet

I love my colleague Tina for many things, but especially because she drinks her coffee from a mug that announces, “I Don’t Do Perky.” False Positive is the title of an article I wrote for psychotherapists about the downside of positive thinking. And a humorous essay of mine begins, “This gratitude craze bugs the shit out of me.”

So it may come as a surprise that I’ve recently begun keeping a gratitude journal.

Call me a hypocrite. I prefer to think of it as similar to the time I went from being a person who doesn’t much like dogs to owning one. I could really relate to canine-indifferent friends who couldn’t express an enthusiasm they did not feel for such lovable behaviors as tail-wagging and that (not so, to them) endearing doggy lean-in.

Likewise, I understand why someone who is suffering can feel even worse when asked to embrace positive emotions. It’s not that I’m a depressive ingrate by nature (at least not most of the time). But I’m wary of efforts to sanitize thought and speech. Too often, expressions of negativity are met with rebuke instead of empathy, and I’ve seen the damage this causes, personally and professionally.  I thus try to champion all those nasty feelings we feel pressure to squelch: anger, sorrow, bitterness, envy, vengeance. Superimposed gratitude is like a thin coat of whitewash that seals in the toxins.

And yet, stubborn resistance is equally problematic.

So during a hard time this summer, I relinquished my protestations and started a gratitude journal, figuring that it couldn’t hurt.

It’s nothing fancy, just an old 5×7” Reporter’s Notebook covered with my daughter’s grade-school scribbles . Every night I write the date and “I am grateful for/that . . . “ Then I list 3-5 things. I try not to repeat myself (though our latest addiction, the TV series Nashville, has made it into several days, and there’s a sprinkling of entries that say “RAIN! RAIN! RAIN!”).

Here are some of the things I’ve jotted down recently:

(And although this isn’t a current event, I’m grateful to my daughters, whose persistent dog lobbying brought Button into our lives for 15 years.)

Button

Two weeks into my gratitude journal, one of the things I wrote was “Feeling way less depressed.” Though the ritual of giving thanks surely helped, there were other things at play as well: I’d resumed weekly therapy after cutting back; the post-cancer scans that always make me nervous were clear; I finally followed through on my intention to volunteer; my weight finally started heading in the right direction; things started to go better for the Democrats; the summer drought of movies yielded to a fresh crop of Oscar worthies; our actual drought yielded (a little) to rain and the promise of more to come.

There is always more to come.  Assuming El Nino delivers on its promise, I look forward to jotting down my gratitude for SUN! SUN! SUN!

That’s how it goes, the chiaroscuro of darkness and light that makes up life’s full spectrum.

I’m grateful for it all.

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Ever felt (or promoted) the prohibition on negative feelings? How’d it go? What are you grateful for?