I am grateful for trees, for sunlight, for November’s melancholy, for shapes and shadows and cameras.

I am grateful for anniversary gifts (above), Julia Child, my husband, 19 years of marriage, the task of raking, the smell of fallen leaves, flannel sheets, darkness to sleep in, sleeping, and coffee.

I am grateful for my boys, for teenage boys in general,

and for the high jinx of Halloween.

I am also grateful that I am mothering teenage boys and not trying to partner with them — which is to say, I am grateful to be 52 and not 14.

I am grateful for some new cyber friends, for the thread/cloth/fiber community I am slowing becoming a part of, for the way blogging forces a certain kind of accountability, and a tracking that is useful to someone like me with a sieve brain and short attention span.

I am grateful for the way my mind works, even with its gargantuan gaps in organizational skill and memory.  I am grateful to all those people wiser than I who have taught me how to surrender (once in a while, accompanied by some form of Grace or other).

I am grateful to SoulCollage® and Tarot cards and the abiding power of images.

More on Surrender when Newton Open Studios is over.