This past week marked a joyful beginning, where many years of professional endeavor came to a new and exciting starting point (click here for the news from Putnam).  At other beginnings, whether first days of school, or moving days, or first dates, or new jobs, I’ve felt the familiar flutters of anticipation, happiness, determination, hopefulness, and maybe even a little queasiness. This time, I feel all of that once again. But overwhelmingly, my feeling is of gratitude.

Coincidentally, I just received one of the greatest presents ever from a dear friend – a jar of joy. It’s full of quotes from my favorite authors, so that when I need a little perk I can reach in and find inspiration. Can you imagine a more thoughtful gift?? The very first packet I pulled out was from Oliver Sacks:

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world; the special intercourse of writers and readers.
Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

Dear Honeybees, whichever beginnings are arriving in your life, and whatever emotions they elicit, I hope there is a big dollop of gratitude mixed in — and a jarful of inspiration to guide you on your way.