From a porch on Thurmond

Gratitude was born on April 13, 2026. Just a few days ago. I named the house after my mother, Kally Klose, who taught us all — every December 26th, with a fresh box of stationery and a bowl of leftover cookies — to write thank-you notes.

She wrote them all year. To a friendly waitress. To an attentive flight attendant. Sometimes to a corporate CEO, when she believed the company served the public well. She thought criticism was too easy. She thought a thank-you was the harder, better, more useful thing to write.

I came to agree with her. The world is far better served when each of us takes a moment to express gratitude to someone for a job well done, once in a while.

Forty years after I left high school, I picked up a pen and wrote one to my old choir director, Mr. Sten Halfvarson. I told him I had just performed a song with a community chorus that I learned in his class, and that the alto part had come back to me. He wrote back, delighted. He said it was rare that a student did such a thing. A few months later, Mr. H. passed away. I am so glad I wrote him that note.

Gratitude — the house — is the next chapter of that practice. The Letter Desk in the parlor has cotton stationery, fountain pens, ink, sealing wax. The wax has a G stamped into it. The mailbox slot is in the front of the desk. Whoever turns the house over each Friday puts the letters in the post.

If you stay, write someone a note. We’ll mail it for you.

WHAT’S NEXT, AT GRATITUDE

May brings the first Supper Club — a guest chef from a Sheridan kitchen, eight at the Table. June begins the Summer Salon Series on the Porch. September brings Sheridan Write-Night with Penny Zeller. November brings the Gratitude Thanksgiving — the night I have wanted to host since my husband died, for any local whose Tuesday-before-Thanksgiving has gotten a little too quiet.

ONE SMALL THING

I have been re-reading Mary Oliver. Page 316 of Devotions. ‘I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention.’

That’s the whole practice, really.

The light’s on.

— Lucy