Ten more things

     While I don't subscribe to the notion that a sunny attitude will upend cancer, I do believe in making myself feel good. You know, for the hell of it. A periodic inventory of gifts and graces helps me feel strong. This week's list:

1. Listening to A's side of a phone conversation with her new baby cousin and his parents
2. Being on the couch with the Sunday NYT, student poems, and my laptop
3. The smell of chicken stew M is cooking 
4. Utter certainty, confirmed with every news cycle, that we're right; that the nation will do the right thing and choose optimism over cynicism; that the batshit haters are the minority; that people are good
5. Going all day on one hydrocodone
6. Being well prepared for meetings at school tomorrow
7. Hearing all about my child's lovely manners from a friend who hosted A for a playdate
8. Talking with my sister-in-law, who is glowing and clearly over the moon ten weeks after giving birth
9. Writing a poem about illness that is not at all true (or at least is not my experience)
10. M