Thank You, My Deer

Can one word change your year? That's what Amanda Brooks from the blog Run to the Finish asked in a post back in January. I breezed through the post, thought briefly about a word, but never came back to it. Fast forward to last week. I'm coming out of my metro stop and a word, or really a phrase, hits me and I can't for the life of me figure out why it hadn't jumped out at me earlier. It's just two simple words: thank you.
Walking out of the metro entrance and continuing my walk home, I felt sort of stunned and silly. How had thank you not immediately come to mind when I read Amanda's post at the start of the year? I'd been using a printed copy of Anne Lamott's November 2012 piece Thanks in Practice as my preferred bookmark and had recently finished reading Ann Voskamp's book on gratitude, One Thousand Gifts. Thank you should have been the obvious choice all along, but it took something much more tangible for me to realize just how big a role thank you would play in my 2013.
A few weeks before I had my thank you epiphany at the metro stop, a message landed in my Facebook inbox connecting me with two girls opening a café in my neighborhood. These two girls were in search of a baker and they thought maybe I could be that baker. After a series of events which I could not be more thankful for, I will be joining the team at Thank You, My Deer to bring delicious gluten free food to Paris's 11th arrondissement. And it was then, after the decision to take the new position really sunk in, that thank you took on its more powerful meaning for the new year. At the risk of sounding too sentimental, I think that as I began to more fully embrace thankfulness as a daily choice, the power of gratitude came full circle. I feel incredibly grateful to have the opportunity in front me and couldn't be more excited to start this next chapter of my life in Paris. I invite you to learn more about the café here and visit us for a gluten free treat at 112, rue Saint Maur when we're officially open for business in just a few short weeks!