We got a taste this morning of the severe winter weather that’s rampaging across the country. We woke to a blizzard with stinging snow blowing every single direction all at once. It only lasted a couple of hours and dumped three inches of snow. No one wanted to go out in it. I’m grateful that my little pets can hold it a long time. Shortly after it stopped snowing I persuaded Topaz and Wren to go for a short walk in the woods, just long enough to find Topaz a small spot without snow under a juniper. I’m grateful it was largely melted by late afternoon so we could take a longer walk, and grateful that tomorrow promises to be warmer and sunny.

We were asked in a group this morning where we find gratitude in the day. One person said “In relief,” i.e., when something happens or doesn’t happen and the emotion is relief, gratitude follows. Once it was articulated, a number of us could relate to that; though I hadn’t thought before about being grateful for Relief. Or if I did, I’ve forgotten. My answer to the query was, “Every morning when I wake up alive in my bed, for waking up alive, for the bed, for the house the bed is in, and on from there….” And of course, I’m grateful for my almost daily cheese sandwich.

Today’s version included mayo, mustard, dill pickle relish, Havarti, two fried eggs, and shredded lettuce, piled between slices of fresh-baked bread an hour out of the oven. Grateful for the convenience of ready-made condiments in the fridge, for the fridge, for the solar power to run the fridge; for the flour, salt, and sourdough still going strong, and the water and how it gets here, and the oven and the propane that fuels it and how those got here; for the fresh organic free-range eggs, and the non-stick skillet, and the wooden spatula; for the organic lettuce and those who grew it and transported it; and for the cheese, and the Danish cows it came from, and all the roads it took to get to my doorstep. I suffer some, but I really have nothing to complain about. And that’s a relief.