Honestly, it feels a bit strange. Something of a wonder and definitely a gift. Nothing I imagined as a child and not really something I planned for in any specific sort of way:

Today marks the launch of my 57th set of 365 opportunities. Birthday number 56. At first, I reflected on other sequential ages…12, 23, 34, 45, etc…and any events of significance that I could recall. At age 12, I met my longest standing friend…Gift of a lifetime, that. By 23, I was living in NYC and working for the public library system, learning about who I was on my own, what I wanted to be about, and how that might happen. I celebrated 34 in southern Louisiana where I could count 17 shades of green without turning my head and had butterflies land on my feet while reading on the gallery. 45 saw me safely in Halifax and also in Wyoming, sorting my father’s affairs before and following on his death.

For the last number of years, in honour of this celebratory cumulation of days, I have written a list…54 Thanksgivings…55 Life Lessons…. This year it was 56 Joys. The list includes a wide range of mostly simple things that reveal themselves along the way, that reveal themselves and that nourish my journey along the way that is strewn with the challenging, the disappointing, the beckoning, and the beautiful…

There are things like: Warm bed, cold room, winter sleep; Making scones; Sharing the scones with others; Watching Waldo splay his paws into furry asterisks when he stretches; the trifecta of clean sheets, clean towels, and clean pyjamas.

As well as Sunshine on my face while sitting in the Gardens; a blank page; fresh ink in the pen; when a word or a line of poetry falls into place.

And, time with friends who love me for me and call it good; the easy warm embrace of a heart friend; loud laughs; the freedom to weep; A seat in the corner and a view of the street; the comforting hum of creation in a familiar place.

A few are specific joys with specific people…each one a gift…the joys and the people…

Ufff…the flood of gratitude upon which I am surfing… It’s entirely incredible to walk with all of this generosity of joy folded into this nest of self that moves with me…that is home…that is holy…that is wholly of relationship, of God, of experience, of Love…

It is all of this that led me to joy #56. In some ways, it is the most obvious and I wondered why it arrived on the page when it did. On the other hand, it made sense…the keystone…or key-stick (to continue with the nest image) joy that holds it all together and is the support for new twigs to be added…

#56 That I am; Who I am; How I am; fearfully and wonderfully made. Utterly human; In the Image and likeness of God.

With grace and extraordinary thanksgiving, Amen.