a while ago, i started a gratitude practice.

i sit on my bed and look around the room and really look at everything i have. i don’t know how or why, but it often turns into an experience of wonder.

i have a bed! i have a pillow! i have a comfortable bed and pillow! i love my bed and pillow! i have $2! i love my $2! i have a purple and green striped wool blanket! the blanket is soft! i love my blanket! i have socks on my feet! i have more socks to wear when these are dirty! i love my socks!

when you’re a child, it seems easier to connect with your sense of wonder.

i suppose it’s because everything really is fresh and new.

i flip a switch and there is light! i flip a switch and the light disappears! the telephone makes a noise! the waves splash me and i am wet! the dog is soft and hard all at once! i touch your cheek and it squishes!

every once in a while, i can look at something and see it clearly.

all of my past experiences fall away.

i see the thing as it is, as it truly is, and i am filled with wonder.

when i can’t, when my sense of wonder fades, i have stories.

anything is possible in stories.

everything is possible in stories.

i like stories that expand my sense of what is possible.

the more i learn about the universe, the more i think that anything is possible.

the more i learn about the universe, the more i think that the most extraordinary things in stories pale in comparison to the wonder that exists here and now.

one morning, in meditation, the beginning of a tiny story came to me.

this particular story is about a mermaid named mariana who lives in the deepest part of the ocean.

her hair is the color of squid ink: the color of the sky at night, the color of the murky water that is her home.

her hair is also home to millions of tiny bioluminescent organisms. when she swims through the ocean, her hair fans out around her in a halo made of light.

i write and tell the stories i love to read.

they spill out when i am connected to my sense of childlike wonder.

i don’t know if there are mermaids or unicorns or dragons under our feet or puppies that sit down to tea with a family of rabbits or trees that fall in love.

but they delight me, they enchant me, they remind me that nothing is as it seems.

and then i lift up my wonder-filled eyes from the story and shine them on the world around me.

can you think of anything better than that?

(need the link to the story club? here ’tis. it’s currently half-off, because i am sticking my tongue out at the winter blues.)