People sometimes make gratitude lists when they are feeling down; such lists serve to remind them that things aren’t as bad as they feel. I understand the theory; the fact that I live in a warm house with sturdy furniture and have enough money to eat and pay for frivolities is indeed reassuring. I don’t like gratitude lists usually, though. They feel like pablum. Like added sugar. I feel as if someone is trying to persuade me that I don’t feel the way I feel.

The kind of list that really reassures me is more often an “ingratitude list,” where I write down all the reasons I have for feeling morose. Such a list makes me feel better, because it makes me realize I have been trying to persuade myself I’m being unreasonable to complain. No, apparently not. It’s entirely reasonable to be gloomy when the weather is relentlessly unpleasant and dark, when my right leg decides to absolutely burn with pain every time I lie down in bed, and when I can’t make myself eat properly and feel like a bag of bowling balls. It is entirely reasonable to be regularly horrified by human cruelty or by the fireball that is politics right now.

I don’t dwell on the unpleasantness, mind you. But it helps to acknowledge that I have good reasons for being a touch discouraged. I just nod, say, “Huh!” and go take some actions to reverse the mood, or else take a nap and start the day over.

We humans are far more dependent on the outside world than we sometimes recognize, is what I’m saying.

But sometimes gratitude is appropriate. Yesterday, I was out with my adult kid and the grandchild. It was cold. The snow was crusted everywhere, and black ice intermittently made the sidewalk into a nonstick surface. The grandchild was hungry and didn’t want to walk anywhere, and my kid was impatient with him and also hungry themself. We made it to the bakery and sat down to eat.

The grandchild, who is six, offered me a bite of his doughnut. I took it gravely, and gave him a bite of my chocolate croissant.

That’s all.

I keep thinking about that. He offered me a bite of his food, as if both he and I were in this thing called life together. As if he was not born five weeks early, unable to breathe well on his own, just before COVID shut down everything. As if I was someone’s trusted grandmother. As if he knew he had enough to eat, even when he was hungry, even when his parent insisted that he walk everywhere in the cold.

Such a small moment, and yet I can’t stop thinking about it. Apparently that is enough of a gratitude list for a whole day.