tyn 1/25

i'm thankful to be alive in the world, even though the world is terrible. i'm thankful to have sat here for several minutes without being inspired to write anything else that i'm thankful for. i'm thankful that usually writing "i'm thankful" immediately triggers an array of things that i can be thankful for in my mind and am thankful for the ease with which i can usually select one and follow its branch away from the root of the sentence. i'm thankful to try to focus on the material and the essential. i'm thankful for trees, which convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, which is a substance we need to breathe and stay alive in the world. i'm thankful for the way it diffuses through membranes into my lungs and my blood to keep my alive in the world. i'm thankful for water, which is part oxygen. i'm thankful to have clean water to use to drink and bathe and cook and wash my dishes. i'm thankful for soil, in which trees and other plants grow and on which we build the places where we live. i'm thankful that at my old job, the department where i worked trained students to take land management and conservation positions at local, state, and national parks. i'm thankful that they prevent forest fires and fight them when they can't be prevented. i'm thankful while at my old job to have learned about the crucial importance of the task of interpretation by park employees, which is when they "translate" the meanings of artifacts, collections, events, and physical resources into a language that helps visitors understand these resources. i'm thankful for the crucial function of this role as "a catalyst in creating opportunities for the audience to form their own intellectual and emotional connections with the meanings and significance inherent in the resource." i'm thankful for creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes; i'm thankful for marshes and bogs and swamps and i'm thankful for deserts and steppes and plains. i'm thankful for hot springs and geysers and i'm thankful for volcanoes, active and inactive. i'm thankful for grizzly bears and deer and wild horses. i'm thankful for foxes and wolves and bobcats and prairie dogs. i'm thankful for fish swimming up and downstream. i'm thankful for birds both rare and common. i'm thankful for beavers and chipmunks and squirrels. i'm thankful for earthworms and mosquitoes and bees, for grasshoppers and crickets, for fireflies. i'm thankful for poison ivy and poison oak, for cactuses, for stinging nettles. i'm thankful for berries of all kinds, even those that are toxic when consumed. i'm thankful for wild mushrooms that grow in dead trees.