The lovely Jooj has the talent of making me pause, suddenly thoughtful. Her post of gratitude from yesterday inspires mine.

I’ve been in DC about two and a half years now, and spent a good portion of my life in this part of the country. I imagine that my wandering predilection will return again soon, and I’ll want to move on somewhere else. I always know this is happening, because I start sleeping away from my house, finding excuses to stay with a friend for a night, never really unpacking my little weekend bag. I can’t leave globes or Google maps alone. I usually take a trip abroad. I find myself totally surprised when I say something like, “I hear Boston/Portland/Berlin is a really cool town –  what was your favorite thing about living there?” and when scanning my friends’ Facebook pages, I always check their networks, in case they live someplace interesting I can grill them about.

But all this is a post for another day. I am, at the moment anyway, quite happy to be living right where I am, a few houses down from Jooj, in a multi-colored DC suburb, watching the leaves float to the ground in a final odyssey.

Things I am grateful for this morning:

• The art of others: sharing the the quotidien across 3,191 miles; light-suffused polaroids; dreamy colors; detail; translating waste and loss into excess, making oneself into a portrait.
• Hot cocoa after a chilly walk
• The generosity of a family willing to have 50 perfect strangers in their house to screen a new (and wonderful) documentary about the story of black Mormons.
• The beauty of belief in the midst of adversity, and what it gives one the liberty to say.
• Arvo Part, slowly teaching me that a break from personal music traditions can be revelatory.
• Butternut squash risotto, which I made successfully yesterday. Also maple-hazelnut pie.
• Friends willing to share their own loves.
• A job which stretches me, even on the days when I feel most unqualified.
• Silly things: Gossip Girl, cardigans, Agnes comics, mascara.
• Latent potential, and whatever lovely place hides it from my view.
• Slow mornings.
• Ties That Bind.
• My clumsy, stubborn, well-intentioned family.
• Sleeping in a ray of sunshine, like a cat.
• Seeing this play downtown a few weeks ago.
• Massive Scharffenberger baking bars.
• Poems, in whatsoever form they choose; the line of a roof, an online chat, a dusty tome, spray paint.

What’s your list?