My nights have been punctuated with bad dreams and periods of wakefulness this week.  I am puzzled about how/why anxiety has crept back under my covers.  I thought I had figured out a way to banish it from the dark, and keep it contained by rituals and healthy habits during the day.

The mind is a strange place, in constant need of tending, like a garden.

*sigh*

I think I will plant some gratitudes into the morning and move on.

1. Several newcomers have appeared at my bird feeders this morning, including a Purple Finch pair, a Brown-headed Cowbird trio, a Red-wing Blackbird, and a Common Grackle.  The American Goldfinch flock continues to enlarge, with about 2 dozen beauties in various stages of spring molt.
2. Yesterday’s snow has completely melted.
3. A Snapping Turtle remains on the edge of a rock outcrop, ready for my continued scrutiny this morning.
4. I had an email this week from a reader asking for help with our common Samuel S White ancestor, a request I unfortunately can’t fill.  Record gaps are so daunting, but new connections are refreshing!
5. I had another email from a long-time reader and cousin with kind words of encouragement to continue writing about the Dodson family, a timely nudge because my research has become such a tangle of intertwined Rowlett, Dodson, and Green stories that I have written nothing instead of something.
6. Which leads me to my last gratitude of the morning.  I am thankful for all those writers before me, who have taken time to commit their thoughts to paper–wood pulp or gigabytes.
   1. J. Russell Rowlett, who built a web page in 2003 to share his documentation of the Peter Rowlett [Chesterfield County, Virginia] family.
   2. Audre Lorde, whose words lift my lethargy.

“Silence will not protect you.”

Research. Review. Connect. Speak out. Stand up.

Write on.