I’m angry today. I’m angry this weekend, and I’ve been angry most of this week. It’s a natural response in the wake of yet another mass shooting that has left yet more students dead and injured in yet another of our schools.

I am tired of senseless killing and tired of seeing children die. I am tired of blood flowing in the corridors and classrooms of our nation’s schools. I am tired of fearing for our nation’s children and tired of fearing for everyone else’s safety in this society—for as we all know schools are not the only targets, only perhaps the most heart-wrenching.

But I’m not cultivating anger. I’m hoping it can serve as a motivating force, but I know it can debilitate as well. I’ve struggled to write today, and I think it’s because my anger connects to feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness and despair. Those will get me nowhere. They will get us nowhere.

Today, instead, I’m going to try gratitude. I’m not someone who keeps a gratitude journal, but I feel a deep need to be positive right now. And I’m willing to try a new approach.

So in the face of all the sadness and tragedy this week has brought—and that neither began nor ended with the school shooting in Parkland, Florida—here’s a short list of why I’m grateful:

• I’m grateful for the eloquent and brave students who survived the Parkland shooting and are responding to it with political engagement and vocal demands for gun control. They are an inspiration.
• I’m grateful for the videos and photos they have shared of the horrendous experience they lived through, and I’m grateful for their parents who have shared their gut-wrenching stories of texting with their students during the massacre. As hard as these are to read and watch, they are important.
• While I’m at it, I’m grateful for text messaging and mobile phones, and I’m grateful that my son used his this week to let me know that he was fine following a crime that occurred near where he lives.
• I’m grateful that my husband and I managed to get 30 nearly rain-free minutes to walk our dogs this morning.
• I’m grateful for the gorgeous snow we had earlier this week and the mist-like rain that turned our pine tree into a shimmering host for tiny beads of water that formed at the end of every pine needle.
• I’m grateful that my husband and friend were able to represent me at a rally for gun control yesterday when illness sidelined me for the second straight protest event (the first being this year’s Women’s March).
• I’m grateful that I was able to celebrate Valentine’s Day this week with a husband I love, and in a restaurant where I was served delicious food by friendly people. So many, many people do not live such lives of privilege.
• I’m grateful that there is a primary election next month and a general election later this year during which I will have an opportunity to demand changes I believe are necessary in my world.

I feel better able now to work to be part of that change than I did when I sat down earlier to write. Perhaps there’s good reason to remain hopeful. I’d love to hear other people’s reasons for gratitude; perhaps we can help to inspire and calm each other.

Meanwhile, here’s a little snowman I fell in love with recently on a walk in my neighborhood. I hope he makes you smile.