~30 days of gratitude~ day 27

11/27/25

I am feeling grateful for Rich again (it’s fine if I repeat myself, I make the rules). But also, been thinking about the man who raised him, and missing him today.

11/27/20

~30 days of gratitude~ day 27

I am grateful for good men. It is a gratefulness saturated with grief today. I am listening to the good man I am married to talking to his Aunt on the phone to let her know her brother, his father, passed away today. My father-in-law was the wonderful man responsible for raising the wonderful man I love. I am so sad, and wanted to let tonight be a moment of silence, but I decided to google gratitude and grief… and here is what Brené Brown says:

“Gratitude is vulnerability. I’ve had the honor of sitting across from people who have survived tremendous things. No matter what the trauma was, they said: “when those around me are grateful for what they have, I know they understand the magnitude of what I’ve lost”. So often we’re afraid to be grateful for what we have because we think it’s insensitive to those who have lost. However I think gratitude, in some ways, is healing for people.”

I always loved to be the one to make Bob a cup of coffee or pop open a beer for him, on the extremely rare occasions he’d indulge in either one. Tonight we toasted him using the glasses he gave us, and I imagine some popcorn will be popped in his honor in the next couple of days. (Yet another divine thing he is responsible for teaching my husband.) I’m posting one of my favorite photos of our dads from our wedding. I am so very grateful for the memories we get to carry forward with us, of this good man.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 28

11/28/25

Rich and I took a walk in our woods down to the bayou today. Moss, trickling water, bright orange fungus, a newt. I got to thinking about frogs again. Earlier this year, I worked with a film crew who needed access to arctic cod eggs, and who had tracked down our lab. Before I met them, I did not know we were literally the only lab in the world—World!—with arctic cod of age and healthy enough to spawn. The guy behind the camera told a story about another time he was standing inside a freezer, only he was filming a frog that was fully frozen as it began to thaw. I had not been aware of frozen frogs, but it’s an adaptation that wood frogs and a few other species have: to send sugar into their veins to protect their blood, and let their bodies succumb to freezing. For the winter. It sounds approximately like my worst nightmare, as adaptations go, and I can’t help but wonder if it hurts?

It’s another shining example of the vulnerability of frogs. Imagine shutting down your metabolism, all the processes in your body, losing your vision. Imagine your heart stops beating, and you’re just a frogsicle in the moss, waiting for spring.

I sometimes think I wouldn’t mind going fully dark for winter and waking up when spring comes. Sometimes my heart has had enough, and wouldn’t mind taking a long winter’s nap. But we humans have our adaptations, too. We have strategies for coping, bayou walks for grounding, friends to help us hold it all.

I liked hearing how the camera was zoomed in on the transparent eye of the frozen frog, fixated on one motionless red blood cell, which then began to move along the blood vessel as the frog thawed, and then more blood cells came along behind it. I am grateful for the astounding abundance of examples in the natural world of survivors.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 29

11/29/25

I am grateful for granddaughters and games!

~30 days of gratitude~ day 30

11/30/25 (observed 12/1)

Last year’s gratitude mascot was our friend the glowing deep sea nudibranch, who inspired us to send beams of light out from our soft, transparent hearts from the deepest darkness.

This year, I’ve spent some of the month of November grounding, kneeling on earth, being closer to the moss. I’ve painted a moss-colored writing nook, contemplated mole tunnels. And this year’s mascot, also close to the soil, has been frogs. Cold and wet, absorbent and vulnerable, but with secret powers. Brumation. Slowing down her heart and allowing it to freeze, knowing even this cannot prevent her survival.

Most years there is a lot of light threaded through gratitude season. This one has felt darker than most. This year there has been light, too, but it required effort to seek it out.

I was pretty sure we were out of luck when it came to frogs making their own light. And, in a way, that’s true. But I did look into it, just in case of metaphors. It turns out, with frogs being mostly nocturnal, they do have reason to attempt to use light to their advantage. But unlike a deep-sea nudibranch creating light within her own cells, frogs have a different strategy.

In blue light, the kind of eerie light that is most abundant at dusk, some frogs biofluoresce. It’s a little different from bioluminescence, like sea slugs and fireflies. Instead of making chemical light themselves, they absorb all the dwindling, cool, blue light of the gathering dark, and send it back out from themselves in a slightly greener, more glowing form.

Nobody knew much about this until five years ago. Our eyes aren’t really equipped to see it. But then some scientists took their blue flashlights out among the cold, dark, dampness. When the effect is exaggerated enough, the human eye can see glowing patterns and colors in frog skin. They found 151 more species that carry this trait. Every frog they shined on, shined back.

Maybe it is still worthwhile gathering even the smallest shards of dim light in the dark times.

Some experts point out that this doesn’t prove the feature has a purpose. Many species aside from frogs biofluoresce for no reason we can reason out. But others note that frogs with big eyes and extra rod cells on their retinas are equipped to see each other’s subtle glow. We don’t know if they use the information, or how, but it’s an open possibility.

The parts of frogs that glow were most often their spots, their undersides, and their throats. Parts involved in communication. It might mean some complicated signaling is going on. A frog friend network that they can see, but that predators may not. It might mean simply: “Here I am. I’m here.”

And it takes exposure to specific lighting conditions for this message to go out. For it to be received.

As it happens, this set of conditions does provide a perfect metaphor for the light of this November. It has taken more effort this year, for me, to gather the small parcels of light that I can still find in the gathering darkness. And I am not saying that I am doing any type of glowing right now, but what I am trying to say is: I am here.

And all month long, as I’ve come to be able to count on, for TEN years, my friends, you have been here, too. Glowing back at me: here you are. And I’m grateful for you being here.