Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, Lake Superior

I’m grateful for the typical essentials – water, air, light, food, shelter, rest

But there’s always something else essential to each of us. I don’t know how to name it, but I know it when I see it. For example: wherever my older daughter goes, she finds something to make. Making things is essential to her – if she’s in a kitchen, she bakes. When she was a toddler, she desperately wanted “grownup” shoes, so she made herself a pair of high heeled mules out of sheets of foam and glue, and tripped around our house and yard. And when we pass a rocky shore of Lake Superior, she always wants to stop to make a rock tower. I am so thankful for that part of her, and all the ways she nurtures that spirit in herself.