77 Things That Don’t Completely Suck (2013)

Holidays are full of complicated things.  You know, little ones, like family, tradition, colonialism, obligation, indulgence, economic injustice, and home.  Also, for Thanksgiving in particular, things you are supposed to be grateful for.

I do not believe in the compelling power of shoulds.  But I do have some awesome things in my life.  So when Havi came up with 77 Things That Don’t Completely Suck, I was thrilled.  I’ve done this a few times before, and so I am happy to share it now with you!

The container is this: you make a list.  Of things that don’t completely suck.  It doesn’t have to be 77.  It doesn’t even have to be three.  (Some days, I can make a list of two things.  Often, I find this helpful.)  We respect each others’ lists.  Everyone is the boss of their own! You can play along here, in comments, or on your own blog or social media, or in the privacy of your journal or thoughts, or in any other way you see fit!

Let’s play:

1. Dulce de leche
2. Magic
3. Transformation
4. Anne Carson
5. Conversations online about Chosen One narratives where the hero isn’t a white cis-male
6. Having friends who are the people who enthusiastically start and engage with those conversations
7. Believe=belove
8. Writing
9. Coffee. I completely love coffee.
10. Cooking
11. Especially late-night emergency baking
12. Also, the feeling I get when I’m cooking, the one where I can perceive myself turning into a nicer person as I do it
13. And then I get to feed people! Genius.
14. Justice. Let’s feed everyone.
15. Common Care
15. My bedroom, which is an amazing mix of spareness with riots of color
16. Connection. It’s my work in the world, and I love creating and nurturing and feeding it in all of its beautiful forms.
17. My financee’s habit of sneaking her foot under the covers to touch mine in her sleep
18. And the completely adorable notes she leaves me
19. Sunshine
20. Curiosity
21. Paper mail
22. And the fact that it gets pretty much anywhere in the world reasonably reliably. It’s kind of amazing.
23. Thunderstorms
24. The Boston area. It is my home and I love it.
25. Our house has a breakfast nook!
26. Non-coercive learning environments
27. Salt
28. Hope
29. The state of Massachusetts, which is also my home, and in which I can marry the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.
30. People working to make equality possible in all kinds of ways
31. Community
32. Walking, which I love to do and am still constantly grateful for after a two-year broken-foot saga
33. Sleep. I love sleep.
34. Also rest
35. And permission to rest in all kinds of ways
36. Teachers
37. Including, and sometimes especially, the ones who don’t know it
37. Mount Auburn Cemetery
38. Deep breaths
39. The ocean
40. Change. Change has gotten me out of a lot of scrapes. Every scrape, actually.
41. Dogs. I used to not be a dog person, but it turns out that now I kind of am, thanks to some really spectacular dogs.
42. Clover
43. Witch-etzin. Which is the word the amazing woman I’m going to marry made up for her job. (It’s like a rebbetzin for a witch.)
44. Have I mentioned that woman? She’s amazing and delightful in too many ways to fit even into a list of 77 things.
45. This salad
46. Libraries
47. And books!
48. And the magical technologies that let me carry a lot of them around all the time in one tiny device.
49. Living in the future!
49. Stars
51. Condensed milk. Whoever thought of that is a genius.
52. I have the greatest backpack
53. Getting the giggles
54. Singing
55. Possibility
56. Modern medicine. I don’t love everything about it, but it’s a really good option to have.
57. Down comforters
58. The internet
59. Bourbon
60. Crows
61. Families: all shapes and sizes and colors and configurations, whether made by blood or by choice
62. This list of everything that Pinky says when the Brain asks him “Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Pinky?”
63. Other people’s kids
64. And the silliness and wisdom and snuggles they bring to my life
65. The gadget on my car that pays my highway tolls through some kind of sorcery. Whee!
66. Clean sheets
67. Having tools for when things are weird or hard or stuck
68. Like NVC
69. And the question “is that true?”
70. And flailing
71. The word “delicious.” It is delicious!
72. Serendipity
73. Friends, old and new
74. The earth
75. You
76. Sharing this heart-rendingly huge and beautiful world
77. Love