Once in a while I’ll slow down for long enough to make a list of things I appreciate. Falls under the category of Practices That Are Good For My Brain. Here’s the September 2022 edition:

• Been a while since I’ve come back from summer vacation and said hello to folks I haven’t seen in months. There has been warmth, laughter, conversation, and good company. Standing in a circle and talking, smiling across a room when somebody walks in, stopping by to chat or catch up, carefully listening, exchanging inside jokes. Just in these last few days, I have felt so much wholesome love and a connection that feels comfortably solid. I know that it’s bound to be a temporary thing, but I’m so glad to be a part of it.
• On a related note: I’ve been accumulating evidence to disprove all the theories my social anxiety brain has been obsessed with for several months, and it’s quieting the fears I’d forgotten might not be true
• Laying on my back on the stone wall of the war memorial and looking up at the trees, listening to the wind rustle in the branches
• Or looking up at a clear dark sky full of stars at new moon
• Fresh sourdough bread, still warm, with olive oil and salt
• Walks on the back roads in town, all the way up the hill to the cemetery and then back down again
• The existence of a painted staircase, a mural of a waterfall beside a twisting rainbow tree, down in Eureka Falls, Arkansas.
• A blue ceramic mug from Wegmans, and the $1 coffee from a gas station convenience store on main street when I need that
• A concept called ‘the grammar of animacy’
• The hard problem of consciousness & a possible solution called panpsychism which I am still trying to wrap my brain around
• Zucchini
• A bowl of pears
• Bill from the CIT help desk in the basement, who was v understanding when I forgot my shift at work
• Maniquins.

One day at a time.