#6

A few years ago, I was having dinner with two of my most favorite people, Lisa Brown and Charlotte Sheedy. It was winter, cold and slippery, and we were cozy in a pub upstate. You know how people play the game, if you could have dinner with anyone, who would you choose? Well, Lisa and Charlotte WOULD be the people, so I was already living my best life - and then Charlotte said something that I’ve thought about most days since.

“When I wake up in the morning,” she said, “the first thing I think is ‘what is the good I am going to do today.” She wasn’t being cute, or self congratulatory in any way, this is just how Charlotte lives her life - by doing good every day.

Now, I am NOT a person who wakes up and thinks of the good I am going to do. I think about how little sleep I’ve had, or an annoyance from four years ago, I go through my to-do list and groan, sometimes I wake up and I am happy for the sun, or rain, or breeze through my window, every day I am happy for Peggy who requires ten minutes of belly rubs as soon as my eyes are cracked open. But never, not even once, have I woken up and thought “what GOOD am I going to do today?”

Except today. Today I woke up and thought it.

I don’t know if this is a new thing now, or if it’s a once in a lifetime event. TBD. It felt momentous enough that I needed to note it.

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