The message

I give thanks for trying to create gentleness in these hard times. Trying to keep my breathing soft, not ragged with sorrows and struggles...my mind not fraught with fears or sharp with self censure... my body not taut and tense with trying to avoid the pain...my heart, though full of things unspoken, ungiven, unshared, still open and warm to make room for more compassion.

I give thanks for waking in pre-dawn darkness, alert and with a sense of a message waiting to be heard. I almost reached for my phone, and I'm grateful I realised in time it wouldn't be that sort of message and just lay still, wondering if maybe some neighbourhood noise had disturbed me, or I was just sensing the natural anticipation of living things before the sun comes up over the horizon.

And then I heard the owls! Their calls speak to a part of me most people never hear or see, what it pleases me to think of as the 'real' me, not broken, not careful with my words and wounds. I give thanks for the feeling that version of this person is still in there somewhere...

I give thanks for a message from Rachel later, saying she wouldn't be coming so I could settle into another uncommunicative day. Sometimes I have a great need to express myself, to respond to what others have to say. There seems to be a lot of silence in me just lately, however. I give thanks that no one seems to mind!