Everything is about Gratitude by Kat Magendie

I was sitting in my comfortable rocker in my bedroom, working at my laptop, when I suddenly stopped and sat still for a moment, inhaling scent I’d just misted on my pillows to prepare for when I snuggle in to read a good book (I have made it a new routine to go to bed early so I can read before I become too sleepy to enjoy it). A soft breeze through the open window cools my face, and the sounds of the evening are quiet and lovely. The birds call quietly their last of the day’s song. Night insects are beginning to buzz and hum, and later when its full dark, the frogs will start their cacophony—I’ve never heard so many loud frogs in my life and at times I curve my pillow around my head to muffle them, but I look forward to them each late summer, all the same.

I look around my bedroom; I like it. I took chances with color and texture. My room looks like fall more than summer, but it fits well here. The warm golden-orangey walls that compliment the log walls, for our loghouse is both log and sheetrock; the cranberry red sheets and velvety red blanket; the chocolate brown duvet cover; the soft furry rugs, the lamps with their shades that give enough reading light, but which also lend a soft golden hue to the room; the ceiling fan turning round and round; the quilts both on the quilt rack, and the one my mom made that is folded at the end of the bed, the black iron bed; the unique table made from tree branches, limbs, and part of a tree trunk; the artwork; the sconces with spicy scented candles inside—all of it together, with all the other touches here and there that give me joy, make this room an oasis.

I feel overcome with a sudden gratitude for the life I live here, and even simply for this room, which in all its placing of this and that and the other somehow works to soothe and relax. I rock. I inhale the scents both of the room, and outside the room that come in on the breeze. I listen to the animals and insects. I think of those I love and those I lost and miss. I think of what has been given to me and what has been taken away. I sigh. Everything is about gratitude. Everything.