Have been waking up all too often these days at 2 or 3 in the morning and just worrying about things.

Silly, because most of the things I worry about are beyond my control!

But there’s something still deep in our brains that takes over in the middle of the night and reawakens the most primeval fears our species learned so long ago!

However, it’s also rekindled the lesson Nana taught me as a child – that the dark, spooky claws against the window turn out to be plain old trees in the warmth of morning’s light.

A good thing for us adults to remember in turbulent times, eh?

Sometimes life is a grind.

Every day the same struggles and stresses.

Not something you want to get out of bed in the morning to experience!

But when I get in these spots, I’ve learned to look for the small, unique bits that Nana provides everyday – if you look for them.

My own personal trick during a funk is to seek out that one incident, scene or encounter that day that made it worth getting up for.

It might be a small thing, like spying a brilliant crescent moon setting while you drive to Starbucks to get coffee for the long commute. Or gazing at some billowing clouds during lunch break. And in my own case tonight, spotting a bird at my feeder I’d not seen before (a white-crowned sparrow).

The amazing thing is that even after all these eons, Nana still manages to come up with fresh things for us to discover each day.

A form of creativity we all can envy!

Watching the bees pollinate my apple tree this afternoon reminded me that life depends on all of us working out good deals with each other.

In this small case it was just bees getting nectar today, and in return I get applesauce next fall (kind of an informal futures market).

But every day is filled with these tiny, yet important, deals that we make with our family, friends and the natural world.

It’s this web of contracts that binds us together – the real meaning of the term “global economy.”