(This was last year’s photo)

It has been a few days since I have tallied gratitudes or written a poem.  Between the mounds of end-of-semester work and the needs of the kids and the haze of allergy season under a tulip tree, I haven’t been keeping the open awareness and daylong focus that is usually necessary for me to prepare a meaningful list for myself.  Some days I can toss off a list off the top of my head, but part of the purpose of writing these lists is that it puts me in the noticing space throughout my day.  Here are some of the things that have been in noticing-space the last few days:

Gratitude List:
1. Peonies.  How old are they?  Forty years?  Sixty?  These come from Jon’s mom, who got them from his grandmother.  They have the most perfect scent (and smelling anything these days is a real challenge for me)–why isn’t there peony perfume?
2. The seniors.  I have fewer of them in my classes, but somehow I’ve gotten sort of attached, and now they go, and I am going to miss them, but I am so proud of them, so eager to watch them try their wings.  Fly high, Bright Ones.
3. Summer is coming.  Long break with a change of pace, a chance to prepare for the next season, to get life in order again.
4. Ingenuity.  We have fewer chances today, perhaps, when we have already invented so many things to do everything we need.  Still, there are opportunities to make and design, chances for the children to learn to invent and create and develop tools and ideas.
5. Flavor.

May we walk in Beauty!