Into November

As I look out and up through the garden window above my desk, I notice the morning sun shining through the branches of oak trees, brightening their leaves of green, mahogany, red-orange, yellow. I notice a lot of movement of the leaves – it's windy and cold out there.

Pausing to notice things is one of my intentions for November. But first, the October wrap-up.

• I'm celebrating the week I spent visiting my brother Steve and sister-in-law Chris and their family. It was a week filled with joys: hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park at Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Little River Canyon in northeastern Alabama; early morning walks along a country road, accompanied by a chorus of roosters and a few dozen cattle resting in a field; Chris's dinners of garden vegetables cooked with eggs from their farm chickens, pancakes with her muscadine and blueberry jellies, plus Steve's muscadine wine and home-brewed beer. Those are just a few of the abundant joys of that week.

• The greatest challenge of October for me was the daily news. Like everyone I'm reading or hearing from, I feel helpless and sickened by the onslaught of violence, terror, and death. Safe in my cocoon of privileged comfort, I wonder, what good can I do? And soon I return my attention to my own small world, caring for the people and projects close to me while occasionally extending myself to give a little more than feels comfortable.

On to November

A possible, partial answer to my question (What good can I do?) comes from Cyndie Spiegel, author of Microjoys: Finding Hope (Especially) When Life Is Not Okay. I heard her interviewed on the Soul and Wit podcast, where she talked about the "practice of discerning joy, available to anyone at any particular moment. ... You can experience microjoys even in the depths of the hardest things."

So, as part of my own practice of finding joy, I will begin a journal of Noticings – with thanks to Tammy Strobel for this intriguing idea.

What I'm most excited about this month is Thanksgiving. This has always been the big annual holiday for our family. The kids come from their homes in Los Angeles and Flagstaff, and we'll have the feast at the home of a family where we've spent Thanksgiving Day nearly every year since before our now-adult children were born. We've missed the past several years, because of the pandemic and other life events, so this Thanksgiving feels extra special. I will prepare and bring dishes in all my usual categories – I always bake bread, cook something with sweet potatoes and something with greens – but this year I'm inspired to try some new recipes.

I'll also be giving thanks for opportunities to share and celebrate with loved ones. And to everyone reading this, in the midst of whatever pain and hardship comes, I wish you abundant joys – micro, large, and in between.