A Grateful Heart

A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles.

In this year’s Heart to Heart calendar, it is my own calligraphy gracing my kitchen this November, and for that, first of all, I am grateful. As is so often the case with gratitude, there is a trace of bittersweetness in the feeling, for this is my last contribution to Heart to Heart. For twenty-five years I annually wrote out quotes for Edy Chan’s labor of love, and it was often the most pleasure I experienced with pen and ink during any given year. She never art directed me, so I could play, and play I did. This year’s offering was dashed out in a quick hour the summer before last. I don’t think it was the last time I held a calligraphy pen, but one of them.

I write here today knowing my subscriber list is broken and that I have not quite managed to get its substitute in place yet. I write here for myself as much as any of you readers, whoever you might be. Possibly some of you receive notifications of my new posts through an RSS feed, which I can’t trace. At any rate, my best-laid plans to roll out the new interface have come to nought, but they are in process and will come soon, I promise.

Meanwhile, I am putting the finishing touches on my book manuscript and making it ready for its promenade to publishers and agents. In the midst of much family chaos and many physical changes to my home, I have still been able to sit myself down at the page, or the laptop, or sometimes just the notes app on my phone, to move forward with the project of my heart. That has also meant peripheral writing, which is submitted out in the world with an eye to supporting the larger work. And when I don’t know what is happening with any of that, I simply sit with my words, my dears, my joys.

I am thankful for so many things today, and I know you are too. Blessed be all we.