gratitude – Susan J Tweit

2020: Remembering the good parts

Posted on December 27, 2020 | by Susan Tweit | 8 Comments

Desert four-o-clock (Mirabilis multiflora) in full bloom.

As we come to the end of 2020, a year that has been tumultuous and difficult in ways we all know, my impulse is to kick the old year in the rear and unceremoniously slam the door behind it. Instead, I want to remember the blessings that came my way, so that I can welcome 2021 with my heart open and my gratitude foremost.

Those blessings? What comes to mind first are the Guy and his dog and horses. I who was perfectly happy to live the rest of my life solo now have a loving partnership again with a man who shares my bond with these Rocky Mountain landscapes, with the literature that rises from them, and who also shares my need for time in the wild.

Me on Cookie, leading Silky into the wilderness on our pack trip.

For my birthday, he gifted me with four days in the remote Washakie Wilderness of northwest Wyoming, just southeast of Yellowstone, where I worked as a young field ecologist. It was pure heaven. Our long-distance relationship isn’t simple, but the rewards are beyond words. My heart is full, and my understanding of the world is enriched by his company, knowledge, and insights.

A lake in the Washakie wilderness where we stopped for lunch on our pack trip.

Another blessing has been time with friends and family, much of that virtual. But in these socially distanced COVID-19 times, the connection with the people I love and whose company nurtures me is so critical.

I treasure the in-person time so much more now that it’s rare. Visits like the walk I took yesterday (masked and socially distanced) with the memoirist Kati Standefer are what sustain me in these challenging days, mind, body, and spirit. (If you haven’t read her stunning debut memoir, Lightning Flowers, do. You’ll understand why Oprah picked it as one of the top 100 books for the year, and it was an Editor’s Choice book at the New York Times Book Review, plus landed Kati on NPR’s Fresh Air.)

A heart-shaped and face-sized chunk of native sandstone, sculpted by time and weathering, and transported by Galisteo Creek.

We trekked up a dry stream-bed near her house at the base of a red sandstone ridge, talking about life and writing and memoir, why we need solitude and the wild and what love is worth, anyway. We hung out with her chickens, and discovered a shared love for Stranahan’s whisky. I found the large heart rock in the stream-bed and lugged it back, knowing somehow it should come home with me.

I needed that high a few hours later when I learned that my friend and writing inspiration, Barry Lopez, had died the day before. It’s been that kind of high-slammed-by-lows year, and I am so fortunate to have a community who cheers me on. Thank you all.

Crossing the farm hayfields in early summer at sunset, after moving the irrigation water one last time.

Another blessing has been time on the land. I live in the rural West, outside Santa Fe in the winter, and in northwest Wyoming in the summer. In between, I spend time on the Guy’s farm, getting to know a whole new landscape in the broad swath of the sagebrush county I call home. Living where there are few people and lots of open space makes it easier to stay safe in COVID-times, and means I get abundant vitamin N, time in nature, to keep me healthy and reasonably sane amidst the tumult of the larger world.

Then there’s the gift of seeing my new memoir, Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying, come to life with a beautiful cover and an inviting page design. And the generosity of fellow authors writing advance praise for BtB. Best-selling novelist Jane Kirkpatrick wrote,

Bless the Birds is the book for our times. It’s a splendid blend of landscapes, relationships, creative work, and spirituality–finding meaning in life framed by an awareness of death. I have a dozen people I want to share this authentic, honest, hopeful memoir with. You will too. It’s a treasure.

Bless the Birds, with a beautiful cover designed by Julie Metz of She Writes Press.

I am honored that this memoir, my thirteenth book, resonates with writers whose work I admire. (The book is due out in April, and if you are so moved you can pre-order it through Amazon, Bookshop–which supports independent bookstores–or your local bookstore.)

And in this year of so many endings, but also new beginnings, I am grateful for this beautiful new website, courtesy of my multi-talented and generous friends Tony and Maggie Niemann of Tracks Software. I’m not sure what I did to deserve Tony and Maggie, but I truly appreciate them!

One more gift of this difficult year: a new appreciation of simply being here. Alive, relatively healthy, and comfortable. I can take a walk in the near-wild every day. I can write, laugh, read, ride, cook, and love. I have faith that 2021 will bring positive changes. For all of these things, I am truly grateful.

May the new year bring us all chances to be kind, compassionate, and live with our hearts outstretched. Be well!

Sunset glow on Sierra Blanca in the Sacramento Mountains, on our Solstice camping trip.

Giving Thanks: Gratitude Practice

Posted on December 1, 2019 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Gratitude is good for us. Brain research shows that simply being grateful releases neurotransmitters that act like dopamine in our brains, making us feel good, and boosting our overall health.

New findings show that practicing gratitude actually rewires our brains to be more altruistic, activating areas of the brain that reward our generosity by increasing the neurotransmitters that signal pleasure and also goal attainment. In other words, the more we find ways to be grateful, the more generous we are and the more we give others a reason to be grateful. That feedback loop gives us more happiness and satisfaction.

The hook is that we can’t just be grateful over one meal, one day a year. We have to make it a habit to remember specific things we are grateful for on a regular basis. And consciously act in generous ways, too.

Those who have read this blog for a while know that Thanksgiving marks a difficult time of year for me because my husband, Richard Cabe, died of brain cancer a few days after Thanksgiving in 2011, when he was just 61. His death followed that of my mom, who died in February of that year. I midwifed both deaths at home, as each wished, with the help of family, friends, and hospice care.

It’s been eight years. Still, I tend to fold inward in late November, not so much from grief, but from anticipatory anxiety. Those two deaths catapulted me into a few very difficult years as I dug myself out of what seemed like an impossible amount of debt, and invented a life that was happy, sustainable, and satisfying.

As an antidote to the trauma of those events and the blues that stem from my muscle memories, I consciously practice gratitude and generosity at this time of year (not only now–I’m just more aware of it at this season). Here’s what I’m most grateful for right now, in no particular order:

Casa Alegría, in our surprise Thanksgiving snowstorm

My new house, which I call Casa Alegría, “House of Joy” in Spanish. It’s been through foreclosure and needs some serious love, but it’s such a beautiful space with great light and open spaces inside and out, plus it feels sheltered in its little hollow. It offers both refuge and expansive views, a nest that gives me a wider perspective on the world, both literally and figuratively.

The great room, with its two-story-high ceiling of tongue-and-groove pine, sun-space opening onto the nearby wild, and The Beast, the pellet stove that supplements the sun’s heat.

The loft, with my desk tucked into the south-facing dormer with it’s sixty-mile view all the way to central New Mexico’s Manzano Mountains.

The kitchen, all warm-colored pine cabinets and cozy beamed ceiling. (There’s a hummingbird nest in the New Mexico locust tree out the window.)

The master bedroom with its sky blue accent wall, and a door leading directly outside to a little covered porch facing east toward the greenbelt below the house.

I’ve just gotten started on the work Casa Alegría needs to feel like a healthy home, beginning with painting a few of the all-white walls in shades of sage green, pale terracotta, dawn yellow, and a soft sky blue. And replacing aged light fixtures with new, energy-efficient ones. The more substantive work will begin this winter, when the uninsulated garage door that no longer shuts completely is replaced with a new, insulated one. (That door not sealing explains the money I spent sterilizing the mouse-infected attic above the garage.) Then I’ll have insulation blown into the attic, which has none after I disposed of the old mouse-pee-crusted fiberglass batts. Plus gutters added to the front portal and the north- and east-facing roofs.

Then comes replacing all of the openable windows and a few of the exterior doors with more efficient ones that will actually seal as well as letting in more light. Followed by stabilizing an exterior post or two, a tricky process that involves putting jacks under overhanging roofs and carefully removing a post, digging a foundation and pouring a concrete base, and then replacing the post using plates and bolts instead of simply nails.

All of which sounds like a lot of work, but is nothing compared to the two years of starting in the basement and working my way upwards re-building the Cody house!

Badger in his Santa Fe-styling winter coat!

Another thing I’m particularly grateful for is the company of a charming canine caballero (gentleman), Badger, the 11-year-old Vizsla in the photo above. Badger has been visiting for the last two weeks while his guy was away on a road trip. In his own polite way, Badger insists on two long walks a day–we usually do three miles or more–on the roads and trails around the house. He also insists on playtime when I’ve worked too long, usually by sitting up on the couch and howling until I come downstairs from the loft!

Badger and his person, DeWitt, wandered into my life when I was teaching at Ring Lake Ranch in September. That deepening friendship is another thing I’m grateful for. DeWitt generously spent a week here helping me move. He insisted on playtime too, so we spent a night relaxing at the hot springs at Ojo Caliente, and then played hooky for a whole afternoon exploring part of the old Camino Real with DeWitt’s sister, Lori, and her friend Allison, and their horses. It’s been so long since I had horses in my life that I had entirely forgotten the joy of simply riding a trail for a few hours without any agenda or schedule.

And that’s another thing I’m grateful for: I’m relearning joy and play. I have been pushing myself so hard for so long that I have neglected the practice of stepping back from relentless do-ing into a more loving and trusting be-ing. It’s time for me to re-learn be-ing and letting my heart guide me.

I’m also grateful for all of you, and the love and compassion you offer the world.

What are you grateful for?

When Grief Inspires Gratitude

Posted on March 17, 2019 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

I walked across town this morning to attend Santa Fe Friends Meeting with grief on my mind. It seems as if each day brings some new catastrophe, another blow to any sense of reason and stability in these times: The massacre of 50 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday by a young white supremacist. The crash of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing Max 737 jet a week ago, killing all 157 people on board, seemingly due to flawed aircraft control systems. Yesterday's news that a soon-to-be-released UN-backed report shows that we are literally using our planet to death at the risk of widespread species extinction and all-out failure of the living communities that sustain not just nature, but human lives too.

How much can any one of us take? I wondered as I found a seat in the meetinghouse. How do we deal with the grief and anger, the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness? How do we find the strength and courage to continue to walk forward, to contribute to our communities and to this planet in positive ways?

There is no one "right" answer to my questions. The answers will be different for each of us, because we are–thank heavens–diverse people with diverse needs, perspectives, and talents. The world needs that diversity; the global crises that we are dealing cannot be resolved with one single solution, one absolute truth. It will take all of us, each working in our own ways, to bring this earth and humanity back to health.

I've spent a lot of time "sitting" with grief in the past eight years since helping my mother through her death in February of 2011. Then, ten months after Mom died, Richard, the love of my life and my husband for almost 29 years, died in November.

Richard and Molly outside the VA Hospital in September, 2009, during his first hospitalization for the brain cancer that eventually killed him.

Molly, the daughter of my heart, lived with us for the last five weeks of his life, helping to the end, a huge gift for her daddy and me. I don't know if I would have survived those weeks of his hospice care at home, if she hadn't been there offering to support us both.

I thought I had learned my way to living with the hole in my heart that those deaths left. I was feeling pretty confident of my ability to be with grief without letting it bring me to my knees. And then Dad died last October. After which, the state of the climate, this Earth, and human culture seemed to go to farther to heck in a hand-basket. I wondered again why I am here and what is the point of this life, when we seem to have screwed things up so badly.

I had no answers. I busied myself with dealing with Dad's affairs: carrying out his will and seeing to the myriad financial and legal details. And then there was packing and moving, which kept me occupied for some months. Plus I had my climate garden idea to work on, another distraction from the inner gloom–even though I have yet to find a market for the kick-ass commentary I wrote with great feedback from friends and fellow writers.

I thought I had passed the danger point of simply giving way and staying in bed all day curled up in a fetal position, or going on the mother of all shopping sprees and blowing my budget. Until some personal news combined with last week's losses around the world, and I felt despair rising.

Yesterday afternoon on a walk downtown, I saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. I turned, and there, hugging the warm ground in a just-cleared flower bed near City Hall, was one clump of chrome-bright crocus blooms. Spring! The promise of renewal, and life continuing despite all that is so wrong around the globe.

Yesterday's crocuses, drinking in the sunshine. A lesson in gratitude, and resilience.

Those crocuses and their promise of spring and renewal were enough to lift my mood, and get me to thinking about writing about grief instead of wallowing in it. Then in Meeting for Worship this morning, a man stood up to speak. He was grateful to be here, he said, to not have to worry about finding food for his family, or shelter for the night. He was grateful to be able to live free from fear, he continued. And then, his voice breaking, he said he was grateful simply to be alive, to be able to "be" in this moment, here worshipping with Friends.

Those words reminded me that I too, have much to be grateful for. In the midst of the losses, I have a snug home, family and friends, work that fulfills and challenges me, a landscape and community to live in that while certainly not perfect, bring me joy. Remembering what I am grateful for helped me swim to the surface of the grief that threatens to overtake me in times like these.

This Friend's raw, yet thoughtful litany of gratitude in the face of shared grief also made me realize that for me at least, effective actions come not from denying my grief, nor from wallowing in it. They come out of the feelings of humility and compassion, empathy and love inspired by remembering to be grateful for what I have, the ability to live with grief included.

I believe that of those, love is what inspires the best we are as humans. As I wrote in my book The San Luis Valley: Sand Dunes and Sandhill Cranes:

What we do best comes not from our heads but our hearts, from an ineffable impulse that resists logic and definitions and calculation: love. Love is what connects us to the rest of the living world, the divine urging from within that guides our best steps in the dance of life.

So even as I grieve for the losses in these difficult times, I will remember to practice gratitude each day, and with it give rise to the love and compassion that are the threads that connect me to all of life, and remind me to act with my heart, as well as my head.

That litany of gratitude includes all of you, the wider community that inspires and informs my days. Thank you for walking this life with me.

Three of the Zuni fetish bears in the collection of beings on my desk who remind me to be grateful for each day…

Gratitude for Mothers of all Sorts

Posted on May 13, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Mother's Day reminds me to appreciate mothers, those of the heart as well as those who bear us. Thank you to all who nurture and support life, whether human or any of the other life forms who take part in the community of this breathing, animate planet. Your love is a gift.

(That's my mom, Joan Cannon Tweit, in the photo above, on her last wilderness camping trip. She was 78 years old when we hiked to a yurt in Colorado's Never Summer Range to celebrate Dad's 80th birthday.)

As I worked in my yard today, I thought about Mom, and how much she would enjoy the daffodils blooming in clumps here and there (I planted 150 daffodil bulbs last fall, and they are rewarding me abundantly this spring). And the peonies peeking up from the soil with their red stems and finger-like leaves; the lilacs, purple buds sill tight-fisted; and the green spears of the lily of the valley leaves emerging in the backyard, where the roof runoff waters them after each wet snow or spring rain.

She would have loved the native plants I'm adding to my once lawn-bound yard too: the new leaves on the spreading phlox and the penstemon, the tiny golden buds on Jones goldenaster, and the yarrow, mallows, and Lewis flax appearing the back-yard meadow.

Mom taught me to love plants. She is the one who led our family's clandestine expeditions to rescue wildflowers from development sites, digging up their fragile roots carefully and nestling them in soil in plastic bread bags, and then pedaling home on our bikes to replant them in her woodland garden. (Mom was legally blind and didn't drive, but she was fearless on a bicycle.)

The "bellyflowers" she would kneel on the ground to admire on hikes to windswept alpine tundra, the breathtaking swaths of gold California poppies on the Big Sur Coast in spring, and the rainbow of flowers in the Sonoran Desert. She wasn't picky though–if she couldn't have wildflowers, Mom was just as happy burying her face in fragrant peonies, admiring brilliantly colored tulips, or smiling when I twirled hollyhock flowers like full-skirted ballerinas.

California poppies on Big Sur

She loved redwoods so tall I got a neck-ache from trying to see their tops, as well as twisted and wind-blasted pines at upper timberline. She took joy in spiny cactus, even the fishhook cactus that six-year-old me sat on accidentally, and Mom, magnifying glass in hand, had to tweeze each hooked spine out of my butt.

Mom was, as I wrote in Bless the Birds,

the wavy-haired, blue-eyed college student who met Dad at the University of California, a six-block walk from her Berkeley home, and made him wait until she graduated to get married. …Who earned a master’s degree in library science despite being legally blind. …Whose smile could light up a room; who prized birdsong, wildflowers, and mountain hikes as much as chocolate. And she really loved chocolate.

Mom died on February 3, 2011, two months to the day before her 80th birthday, and nine months before brain cancer took Richard, the love of my life. I think of Mom every day, and especially when I work in my yard, or go for a hike to see wildflowers. Or eat some chocolate…

—–

For a plant-person like me, a day with time to hang out with my green kin–whether wild or in my garden–is an excellent day, whether it's Mother's Day or any other day of the year.

The ony thing that could make Mother's Day better is getting this note from Molly, the daughter of my heart, along with a gift certificate to one of my favorite mail-order nurseries:

Happy Mother's Day
You have always been and always will be a mother to me. When I think about my strengths, I see your hand and voice in all of them.
I'll send you a longer note, for now just sending love.

Oh, yeah. That one made me cry. Thank you sweetie! I love you too. Always.

Stand-up paddleboard lessons with Molly and her fearless dog, Roxy. Molly is like a dancer on a SUP; I excel at falling off with a huge splash!

Wildflowers for Mother’s Day

Posted on May 14, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

I had a lovely Mother's Day, and I hope you did too. Mine was quiet and mellow, just the way I like it: I spent time with friends, caught up with my family, and then worked in my yard, planting new plants, grubbing out invasive weeds, and seeding in the beginning of a native meadow in the backyard that last week was torn up for my new underground electric line.

After I finished playing with plants–something that never fails to make me happy–I headed out for my usual Sunday evening run.

I can't say that running makes me happy the way working with plants does, but that particular form of self-torture, er, exercise, does get me outside and into the nearby wild, which always lifts my spirits. And once I finish the run, I feel quite virtuous. (And completely worn out.)

I hadn't been out for a run in almost two weeks because of travel and house renovation, so I wasn't sure whether the spring wildflowers would still be dotting the sagebrush outside town.

Indeed they were: Oh, not the same Nuttall's violets, wild parsley, and spiny phlox that were blooming a few weeks ago. The next wave of wildflowers had taken over the spring bloom.

I spotted the creamy flower clusters of wild onion first.

I think this is Allium brandegeei, Brandegee's onion

And then this cute yellow composite (daisy-family plant) with its mats of thumbnail-sized fuzzy leaves and outsized flower heads with notched rays.

(I haven't identified this one yet.)

And these evening primrose blossoms, opening to invite late-flying pollinators in for a meal.

This is probably whitestem evening primrose, but I'm not entirely certain

And who could miss the brilliant scarlet bracts on this indian paintbrush! The prairie junegrass (Koeleria macrantha) next to it on the left is a big part of what makes the landscape in the photo at the top of the post look so green.

Castilleja angustifolia var. dubia

As I huffed and puffed my way through my 3.5-mile route, I spotted more wildflowers: chrome yellow stoneseed, ivory bastard toadflax, starry white Hooker's sandwort, and the sulfur yellow of prairie rocket or sand-dune wallflower dotting the sagebrush in the photo below.

Erysimum capitatum among the Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp Wyomingensis) and prairie junegrass

At the end of my run, I turned back toward town a little reluctantly because I was so enjoying the wildflowers. Most are familiar, old friends I have known since childhood or since college field botany classes. Some, like that mat-forming composite with the outsized golden flower heads are new ones I have yet to learn.

Either way, they're a wonderful Mother's Day gift, a blessing from this landscape that holds my heart.

My word for this year is "gratitude." It is easy to be grateful for each day now that I am home. Of course, there are challenges; in particular, house renovation, which always brings surprises, and always costs more than I expected, as well as earning a living from my writing, which I haven't really mastered since Richard died.

But those challenges can't dent my joy in being here, among a community of friends, both human and wild. In a place where I and the ravens and bluebirds belong in a cell-deep way, along with the aromatic big sagebrush, the prairie Junegrass, and the blessing of wildflowers.

All of us part of Earth's time of spring and renewal.

I wish you all that heart-whole sense of belonging and the rich connection of being at home on this extraordinary planet.

And because it's Mother's Day, I can't forget a shout-out to my mom, Joan Cannon Tweit (1931-2011), the California girl who passed to me her passion for all plants, domestic and wild, especially native wildflowers. Thanks, Mom!

Mom, on her honeymoon in Lassen National Park, June 1952

One Nation, Indivisible & Renovation

Posted on March 5, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

I first heard about the Indivisible movement from my 88-year-old dad in January, not long after I moved to Wyoming. In our weekly call–he lives just 15 minutes from my brother and sister-in-law, but I still check in almost every weekend, since Dad lives alone and is legally blind–I asked what was up in his world.

“Well,” he said, “three gals from Panorama [the senior community where he lives] and I visited our Senators’ offices to talk about our concerns.”

“We’re using the Indvisible Handbook,” he added. “And following their recommendations about how to communicate with our members of Congress.”

I hadn’t heard of Indivisible then, and as Dad filled me in about the grassroots movement, my mind leapt to the Pledge of Allegiance, which as a child of the public schools, I recited every school-day for more than a decade:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, and with liberty and justice for all.

(That’s the version adopted in 1954; the original version was shorter, especially the final clause, which read simply, “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”)

Within the next couple of weeks, Wyoming Rising, the group that formed out of the Cody Women & Allies Rally, adopted the Indivisible Handbook as its guide for action. I’ve been impressed by the speed with which the movement has grown, and its effectiveness in getting out the message of fairness, of liberty and justice for all.

The name “Indivisible” is brilliant: for its simplicity, its evocation of the patriotism in the Pledge of Allegiance, and for its reference to what is a founding concept of this democracy of ours: we are “one nation, indivisible.”

Indivisible. n. Unable to be divided or separated.

No matter our religious, cultural, racial or political differences, we have more in common as human beings, as citizens and residents of these United States, than not. At heart we want the same things (though not necessarily in the same order): good lives for ourselves and our families, love, jobs, comfortable homes, religious freedom, education, a healthy environment, financial security, health care, a future that looks bright.

It seems to me that we are most likely to achieve those things if we work together, instead of fracturing on lines of ideology and politics.

I am reminded of the Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn quote on a Solstice broadside sent out by Clifford Burke and Virginia Mudd of Desert Rose Press:

If it where only so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and if it were only necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

None of us are perfect. None of us have all the answers. But together, we can do great things–for all.

*****

On the house restoration front, it’s been a busy week. Probably the biggest change is that the weather was balmy enough that Jeff Durham, my contractor, was able to work outside and remove the carport addition that turned my front entry into a dark and forbidding cave.

The front entry before, with Jeff up on its flat roof (which didn’t drain and thus had begun to rot). My front door is back there in that dark hole.

The front entry after, with my new front-door patio exposed (room for the cluster of pots sitting on the lawn, plus perhaps a stock-tank planter full of tomatoes and basil….). In the morning, the sun now reaches under those eaves and lights the kitchen.

That now-sunny kitchen, with more door handles returned to their original copper shine (29 handles done, 14 to go).

Tree-removal work commenced as well, thanks to Aaron Danforth of Arbor Solutions Tree Care, beginning with the big spruce that was threatening to fall on my living room and dining room. For those who hate the idea of removing trees, let me reassure you: When Aaron is done removing three mature spruces, seven Rocky Mountain junipers, two sick European Mountain Ash, and one green ash tree split almost to its base, I will still have a mini-forest of five huge spruces, three crabapple trees (which will have space to breathe and grow), one green ash and one honey-locust.

(That’s Aaron halfway up the big Engelmann spruce, removing limbs. He’s a rock climber who took to tree work.)

Inside the house, we’re replacing plumbing fixtures that barely work with new efficient ones (one toilet done, two more to go), and, in the most visible development, Shantel, Jeff’s daughter and also mother of his adorable toddler grandson, Jayden, is painting in between mom-ing and school (she’s working toward a nursing degree).

This weekend Shantel finished the fussy work of painting the kitchen wall above the cabinets “Cloudless” blue to match the wall oven and microwave, and painted the end wall of the adjacent breakfast nook in the soft yellow I picked to go with my vintage metal cabinets.

(Art on the left-hand wall by Salida printmaker Sherrie York; mandala by Tommy Williams of Riverton, Wyoming; vintage table from Connie and Jay Moody of Cody; jonquils from Kerry and Dave Nelson of the former Ploughboy Local Market in Salida)

And then she really got on a roll and painted two of the living room walls with that same yellow. (“They Call it Mellow”–you have to love color names!) Between the new paint and removing the horrible brown drapes and hardware, the room looks bigger, lighter and brighter.

Next week, Jeff will install the insulating roman shades that are currently lying on the floor, and then start framing in the space in my bedroom that will become a small “en suite” bathroom (so when I’m old, I won’t have to share the main bathroom with my live-in companion…).

Did I say that I love my house? And that it’s satisfying, healing and downright exciting to help bring it back to life?

I am grateful–to be alive, to be home again, and to be involved in so much positive work, my writing, this house-restoration project, and in speaking up for the earth and my fellow humans. Bless us all!

Gratitude: My Word for 2017

Posted on January 2, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Every year around Winter Solstice, I remind myself of the word I've chosen for the year, consider what it meant and how it was expressed in the way I lived my days, and then ask myself what next year's word will be. Sometimes I hear the answer right away; other times it takes a while.

For 2016, my word was abundance. Not in the sense of an abundance of stuff or money, or any other material thing: abundance in the sense of plenty, as I wrote in my blog post when the word came to me just after Winter Solstice in 2015:

Abundance as in "plenty": plenty of joy, plenty of time, plenty of ideas and words and readers, plenty of money, plenty of fruitful opportunities, plenty of energy and vigor, plenty of love…

Turns out abundance was a good word for my personal year, if not for the horrors of national and international events. 2016 was a year that brought all sorts of gifts, including a lot of love from family and friends.

Family love: Molly Cabe and me in February; with my brother, Bill Tweit, last month when he and my sister-in-law, Lucy Winter, and my youngest niece, Alice Tweit visited for the holidays.

So as the days grew shorter and Winter Soltice came and went last month, I listened for my word for 2017. And listened, and listened. Because I didn't like the word I heard first: gratitude.

Gratitude? Really?

After that painful election season? With the hatred and divisive politics that have overtaking my small town, the shootings in this country, the violence around the world, the refugees dying as they flee wars in the Mideast and ethnic cleansing in Africa, Burma and other places around the globe, the extinctions of other species?

What, I thought, is there to be grateful for in these scary and turbulent times?

Still, each time I listened, the word I heard was gratitude.

I looked up the definition: "the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness."

Humph.

The last part of the definition stuck with me though: to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

I think the world needs a whole lot more appreciation, and many tons of "returning kindness." So I adopted gratitude as my word for 2017, and in particular that latter meaning.

Which, come to think of it, I do every morning (show appreciation) in my yoga and prayer routine. As I complete my asanas, I bow to the four directions, along with earth and sky, in gratitude for this place, and the living community that animates this planet, humans and the myriad of other species with whom our lives are intertwined.

And then I speak aloud a prayer to the spirit of life, asking that I be able to live my day in love and balance, that I treat others with compassion and kindness, that I am strong but not rigid, that I walk in balance, beauty, and yes, gratitude for this existence.

As in the view of Venus near the new moon last night…

Gratitude, I realized, the showing of appreciation and returning kindness, is not a Pollyanna sort of attitude. It doesn't preclude being engaged in the world, witnessing and working to alleviate fear, injustice, hunger, poverty of all sorts, or hatred.

It means recognizing the good, small or large, staying open and receptive to that "ocean of Light" that will overcome the ocean of fear and darkness. It means remembering to value what is positive, taking time to respect and acknowledge the blessings each day brings.

And there are blessings, even when our days are full of pain and sorrow and anger and grief. The sun still rises and sets, snowflakes are still crystalline and beautiful, the ocean still laps or pounds the shore, this planet is still bursting with an abundance of life as dazzling as the stars in the dark night sky.

We still have friends and family and community; we have work and art and song and dance; we have food and housing and clothes. We are alive, a gift I have learned is very precious indeed.

So yes, gratitude is my word for this new year.

I am grateful for all of you; I am grateful for the home I am leaving, my sweet little complex here in Salida (photo at the top of the post), and the home I am moving to in Wyoming (photo below). I am very grateful for life, both the capital 'L' kind and my quotidian existence.

May 2017 bring each of us much to appreciate, and may it reward our kindness abundantly. Blessings!

Sunset behind Cedar and Rattlesnake mountains just outside Cody, Wyoming

The Best Gift: An Abundance of Love

Posted on April 10, 2016 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

One of my rituals between Winter Solstice and New Year's Day is to "listen" for the word that will serve as my intention for the coming year. I don't consciously think of a word; I tune in to my inner voice for what word presents itself. This year's word, "abundance," came to me as I was journaling one December morning.

As I wrote in this blog, I resisted the word at first, confusing it with giving, which I am as guilty as most women of overdoing. Until I looked up the definition, which includes the words "plenty," "plentifulness," and "prosperity."

Oh, I thought, duh. Abundance as in "plenty": plenty of joy, plenty of time, plenty of ideas and words and readers, plenty of money, plenty of fruitful opportunities, plenty of energy and vigor, plenty of love…

And in fact, this year is yielding all sorts of abundance, including many that I imagined when I wrote those words: Opportunity, joy, ideas, words, readers. Not so much abundance of energy (my Lupus has definitely been more challenging this year) or money (ditto for life on the financial plane), but I am managing well anyway.

The form of abundance that has been the biggest surprise–and gift–is the last one on the list above: love. Specifically, love from Molly, my 37-year-old "kid." (As biology sees it, she's my step-daughter; seen through the lens of the heart, she's mine, and has been since I met she and her daddy when she was three.)

Richard and Molly on her 31st birthday, when he was recovering from his radiation treatments.

In early January. when I was off on a personal writing retreat in Santa Fe, Molly texted one night to ask if we could talk. It's been difficult for both of us since her daddy died, and she had been incommunicado for weeks. I knew something was wrong.

I had felt angry and hurt by this latest withdrawal–the longest since Richard died–but I put my feelings aside. If she needed me, I needed to listen.

We talked. I learned that she had just separated from her partner of 12 years, a decision that took enormous courage.

"I'm sorry I've let this come between us," she said. "I miss you."

In that moment, nothing else mattered. "I love you, and I always will. Sometimes I don't like you very much, but the love is always there."

We talked through some difficult stuff, cried, and by the time we ended the call, I felt like our healing had begun.

In February, Molly flew to New Mexico to join me in Silver City during my Write & Retreat workshop. Those four days together were precious time.

Me and Molly in the wind in Mesilla, New Mexico, visiting old haunts.

Since then, it's rare that more than a few days go by without us being in touch via text, email, or phone. She says "thank you" and "I love you" often. I do too.

Which brings me to the photo at the top of the blog post. On the way home from my regular end-of-the week run yesterday afternoon, I impulsively stopped and shot a photo of the storm clouds blowing in over distant peaks. I texted it to Molly with an "xoxo" message and then ran on. She responded with, "Beautiful. Thank you. xoxo"

Later that evening, she texted the locket photo above with this message: "Was just organizing the bathroom and found this."

"Love it and remember dearly the moment when you guys gave it to me."

I had forgotten the locket entirely, but as soon as I saw her photo, I remembered picking it out, finding the photos of her daddy and me, and fitting one into each tiny compartment.

Today on the phone, Molly reminded me of when we gave her the locket: "It was for my first period. You made a celebration of it. Such a gift in a time that was very difficult. You made it special, and made me proud of myself as a young woman."

We had moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for Richard's university position. Molly went from grade school in a Midwestern town to middle school in a much more difficult social and cultural environment. And then she got her period–it was all scary and stressful for her. So I came up with a celebration of that passage into womanhood.

"I loved you then and I always will."

"I know that," she said. "That's my miracle."

It's mine too, Sweetie. Thank you for this abundance of love–the best possible gift of this year of abundance.

Molly and my sister-in-law, Lucy Winter

Saying Thanks

Posted on November 22, 2015 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Back in the days when I tended an enormous edible garden in raised beds just outside the kitchen door of my former house, I began a practice of saying thanks to the plants as I harvested them.

“Thank you, squash plants,” I would say, “for producing these shiny green Romanesco squash with the creamy flesh.” And then I’d add, “Thank you, squash bees, for pollinating the flowers so the plant can produce the fruits we eat.”

Squash bees (one of North America’s 4,000-some native bee species) pollinating a Romanesco squash flower while they mate.

I’d thank the heritage tomato plants as I picked their juicy, sun-warmed fruit. And the crunchy carrots I carefully pulled from the soil; I’d thank the broccoli as I snipped off tight florets for stir-fry, the cucumber vines for their crisp fruit sliced for sandwiches, the rosemary as I harvested fragrant branches to lay on salmon filets on the grill.

I’d praise the strawberries for producing the intensely sweet fruits we ate on our breakfast each morning, the first fat spears of asparagus pushing up in spring, the ruffled plenty of Mesclun lettuces, the nutty scarlet runner beans in pods still clinging to withered vines after hard frosts.

Nurturing those plants from seeds planted with my own hands in the rich soil filling the raised beds Richard had built made me acutely aware of how fortunate I was to be able to harvest and eat such a bounty of food, and how grateful I was to the plants that shared their flesh with us.

A basketful of food harvested from that garden

That Thanksgiving, as I was preparing dinner using almost all local food, including the last tomatoes and garlic from our garden, I said to Richard, “Why don’t we say thanks to our food before our meal?”

His eyes brightened. “Great idea!”

After everyone gathered, we held hands around the table and Richard said a traditional grace, expressing our thanks for the blessing of friends and family coming together, for the meal we were about to eat, and then added a short litany of thanks to our food: “To this turkey, whose flesh we will eat; to the wheat that gave its seeds for our bread; to the yams, sage, parsley; the cows that provided the butter; the pecan trees whose nuts enrich the pies…”

Thus began the tradition I continue today of saying thanks to my food before I eat.

Not at every meal, because I don’t always remember or take the time. But at least one meal a day, I spend a few minutes thanking my food. I also thank the farmers who grew or raised it, the people who harvested, processed, shipped, and sold it. And the pollinators, the sun, rain, wind, soil; the microorganisms who keep soil, plants, and animals healthy; the oceans, estuaries, and shores where our fish and seafood come from; and finally, this glorious living earth itself.

A summer shrimp and vegetable salad topped with nasturtiums picked from my garden.

Saying thanks keeps me aware of and connected to what I eat, and to the living community of this earth, land and water alike, that nourishes those beings, as well as the people involved.

Sweet and juicy Colorado peaches, another food I’m grateful for…

Choosing to be grateful and express that gratitude, Arthur C. Brooks points out in a column in today’s New York Times, can actually make us happier. Studies show that people who express gratitude on a regular basis “show significantly greater life satisfaction” than those who don’t.

The effect is measurable in your brain. “Gratitude,” Brooks explains, “stimulates the hypothalamus (a key part of the brain that regulates stress) and the ventral tegmental area (part of our ‘reward circuitry’ that produces the sensation of pleasure).” The positive effects of gratitude go even farther, Brooks says, citing research which demonstrates that gratitude–even a simple “thank you”–can disarm others’ bad behavior.

The world is certainly full of ‘bad behavior’ these days. A thank-you won’t likely stop a crazy person bent on violence, but it might well lower the overall tension that feeds that violence. Anything that will help us feel more positive, and behave with more grace and less hatred seems like a good idea.

So this Thanksgiving, as you sit down to eat, serve up a dose of gratitude along with your meal. Thank your guests for joining you, thank those who prepared your food, thank the food itself. Offer the gift of gratitude–and the positive rewards that come with it, from brain circuitry to behavior.

And after the Thanksgiving meal is cleared away, don’t stop there: continue your gratitude practice on a daily basis. What are you grateful for? Leave a comment below, and inspire us all.

I am grateful for all who read, think about, and share my words. Thank you for walking this journey with me.

Stained-glass by Tom Williams, a wedding gift three decades ago that still brightens my days. Thank you, Tommy!

Recognizing and Honoring My Limits

Posted on November 9, 2015 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Yesterday afternoon as I drove the four-and-a-half hours home from Santa Fe and the Hillerman Writing Conference, I said to myself, “It’s Sunday. You need to write a blog post.”

But by the time I crested Poncha Pass, half an hour from Salida, I was exhausted. At home, I unpacked and made myself a simple dinner. I opened my laptop, wrote in expanses from my trip, read the news, and dealt with emails and messages. That was all my brain could manage; I had no writing in me.

(The photo above is the view from the top of the pass, with “my” mountains, the Sawatch Range, in the distance over the ridge.)

As I returned from my regular Monday run tonight, a four-and-a-half-mile route that included a lovely sunset on the return leg, I said to myself, “You didn’t write a blog post last night. You’ve got to do it tonight.”

Sunset from the Monarch Spur Trail tonight, with the Arkansas River Canyon in the distance.

So after harvesting the last broccoli florets from the frost-nipped plants in my front-deck kitchen garden, I came inside, cooled down and changed, and made myself dinner including that uber-local broccoli steamed and tossed with butter and toasted pecans, plus half a baked yam, and a quesadilla featuring a fresh tortilla from the San Luis Valley and Rocking W Cheese’s smoked gouda from western Colorado.

While I ate, I tried to think of what to write about. Nothing came to mind, probably because I’m still worn out from heading to Colorado Springs Wednesday afternoon to teach my Memoir 101 workshop, driving home Thursday night, and then hitting the road for Santa Fe and the Hillerman Conference Friday morning, and not getting home until yesterday evening. Plus a full day of work today, followed by my run.

Thinking about that brought my Aha! moment. I am doing precisely what I’ve promised myself I won’t do: Ignore my limits. Just because I “should” write a blog post each week doesn’t mean I can.

In the past five weeks, I’ve driven over 5,000 miles, presented at writers conferences in three cities, taught workshops in two more, and spent time in six states. Both my long road-trip in October and this shorter one have been fruitful times to think, enjoy a lot of gorgeous western landscape, hang out with various clans of my writing tribe, to teach and be inspired by workshop participants, and to visit friends and family.

Bighorn Sheep Canyon on the Arkansas River last Friday evening–seen through Red’s windshield, of course…

And the combined trips have worn me out. All of that driving–what my friend Terry Carwile calls “windshield time”–and all of that stimulation and interaction have taken their toll. I’m tired.

It’s time to notice my limits and honor them. Not to mindlessly press onward just because I should do something.

Of course, here I am writing a blog post. But as I do it, I’m understanding and recognizing my limits.

And honoring them by keeping it short. So I can practice not pushing myself.

Once I post this, I’m going to to smell the mini-roses in the fair-trade bouquet I bought yesterday to brighten my drive home. Then I’ll toss on a jacket and go outside to admire the spangle of stars in the moonless night sky.

Because I am grateful for the gift of this life. Because I want to remember to love my moments, and live them with my heart outstretched as if it were my hand…