Name Five Good Things

A small, benevolent practice in any season

Hello! I’m author Heather Lanier, and The Slow Take is my very occasional, always free newsletter that invites us to lean into what makes us feel more human. Think of it as the opposite of a botox billboard or a thank-you note written by AI. There are only real thank you’s here. Thanks for being here!

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Summer is a tug-of-war season in my house. I’m off! I’m free! I’m also solo parenting most days, with two very different kids.

After the first week, I was ragged but still needed to rally for another day alone. We chose to go to the pool. Our swim club has not just a pool but a lake. We are pool people.

When we arrived, though, the pool was all locked up. Turns out, it didn’t open for another hour.

“We can go to the lake!” I said, trying to muster enthusiasm.

The 12-year-old was game. The 14-year-old, who has developmental disabilities, was not. We unfolded our chairs on the sand beneath some trees and walked toward the brownish-green waters encircled by pines.

My oldest, smallest kid did not want to venture into the lake. Her sister coaxed her from chest-deep waters with a smile and a promise to play.

“No,” my oldest, smallest kid said. She stood at the water’s edge. She wanted to sit back down in her chair and sulk.

This is how it goes sometimes in the summer. All the beauty and freedom right in front of you, and it still can feel like a drag. Or a trap. Why is this? Human condition, I guess? Eve biting the apple? Hungry ghosts haunting our souls?

I followed her across the sand, back to our chairs. I was feeling the drudgery of the day, the slog of trying to find fun things for kids when they are not actually that fun for you.

“Name five good things,” I said to her from behind.

This is the kind of obvious positivity practice that I usually dismiss. Like a gratitude journal. Or dreaded affirmations. But I’d recently started “naming five good things” on a whim, when I realized I was focusing on all that was missing, on all that was bad. (And wow, there’s an ample supply of that. Thank you, Medicaid cuts, for reminding us just how little this country cares about disabled folks and their families.)

Name Five Good Things is a way for me to see the unseen beauties. I’ve recently named the following: The absence of any fevers raging through my house. Our stocked fridge, or the money to fill it. A friend’s three-layer strawberry shortcake. Tiny drawings. Time to write.

“Name five good things,” I said to my kid. Her gate was uneven due to sand and scoliosis. Her swimsuit was defiantly dry.

“I don’t know,” she said. Either she hadn’t learned the practice yet, or she just wasn’t game.

This year, thanks to a fairly incompetent IEP meeting, I had to hear a special educator repeat, over and over, the number of my daughter’s IQ. The educator used this number almost as shorthand for all that she did not expect my daughter to do. (I probably don’t need to explain all the ways that the IQ test is problematic and ableist. But if you want to learn more, read Pepper Stetler’s A Measure of Intelligence.)

In any event, the official number means that my beloved, with her bright blue eyes and enthusiasm for cheese and love of grown-up parties, technically has “severe intellectual disabilities.”

But it turns out that, just because someone has “severe intellectual disabilities” does not mean they aren’t wary of their mother’s potential toxic positivity.

I mean to say: I asked again, and no, my daughter would absolutely not name five good things for me.

“I can name five good things,” I said as we got nearer to our chairs. “It’s finally sunny after six weeks of rain…. We get to come to the lake today…. We’re going to eat from the snack bar for lunch….”

My daughter’s moods are sometimes just ten minutes long, so eventually she looked at those greenish-brown waters of the lake and said: YEAH!

Once immersed and buoyant from the (good thing of) her flotation device, she shrieked with joy. “Thank you, thank you!” she said, splashing. “Thank you for taking me to the lake!”

Naming five good things isn’t about putting on rose-tinted glasses or avoiding all that’s bad. It’s just about making sure you don’t miss what’s also good. I need this practice, in the summer, in this shitstorm of a political era, and all year round.

We eventually moved to the pool. But when we got home later that day—all filled and tired and happy from the sun—and when there was no threat that I was trying to change her mood, I said again: “Name five good things.”

She rattled her five things off quickly:

1. Me.

2. Her dad.

3. Her sister.

4. Her iPad.

5. The lake.

Here’s the good I’m naming today:

1. It’s Disability Pride Month! (As my friend Steve Kuusisto says, “Disability is life!”)

2. Some educators we work with already know that IQ tests are bogus.

3. Wide-leg jeans just keep getting wider and I’m here for it!

4. I’m middle-aged in an era when women talk openly about perimenopause.

5. Chocolate. (When in doubt, always end w/ chocolate.)

How about you? Do you want to name a few good things? Maybe just one or two?

Photo taken by my oldest smallest kid, Fiona, while we were paused at a museum cafe.

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PS—I used to write about my oldest, Fiona, all the time, when she was much younger. Some of the best writing I’ve ever done is buried on the Internet in a blog called Star in Her Eye. (This was the most popular post.) Of course, there’s also my memoir, Raising a Rare Girl, which not only was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice but also makes for a cute coaster. (Just today, the book prompted a random stranger to write me and say: “I appreciate your words so much. I need to get myself a hard copy now so I can highlight the many passages that made me weep and say yes!!! This! this is how it feels.” Thanks, Lia!)