We can hold all of this

Diesel and P. Photo by Raechel Anne Jolie

There’s this moment of immense gratitude when you have someone who can take a picture of you that allows you to see yourself through their eyes. And what you feel is not revulsion, but what that person feels when they look at you.

There’s another gratitude, immediately tactile, in holding close a dear cat, and a gratitude for the limberness of cats that if they like you enough, they can be little spoon to your big spoon, and gaze at you lovingly, and even lick your forehead, all at once. Another gratitude still when this can happen in the cold late morning of a cold grey day in the farthest reaches of leafless autumn just before the solstice comes and makes winter official. Gratitude for the dropping temperatures, gratitude for the soft blanket of clouds pulled high, gratitude for the resting earth, gratitude for the turning seasons that are limber enough to let us leave things behind and get second chances, all at once. Gratitude for the cat. Gratitude for your beloved who sees your best self and asks you not to give up reaching for it.

Spotify tells me that my top three songs this year were Nora Brown, “The Very Day I’m Gone,” Mitski’s “Love Me More,” and Lovers, “Boxer.” It was that kind of year.