When I was a girl, I kept a sanctuary that no one else could see. It was made of paper and ink, and its most beloved room belonged to Anne Shirley of Green Gables. Childhood was not always gentle for me, and reading became my reprieve: a door I could close against the noise of the world. I remember the moment Anne, newly arrived in Avonlea, gazes upon an ordinary pond and refuses to call it ordinary. She names it the Lake of Shining Waters. Even then, I understood what she was doing. She was choosing to see beauty where others saw only scenery, and that choice was its own small rescue.

This autumn, my husband and I decided to venture into the woods to see the fall colors with our two dogs. It should have been a simple pleasure. The disease, however, rarely permits simple pleasures to remain simple.

Before we ever left the driveway, the preparations had fallen to me, as they usually do. I gathered snacks and water for the dogs, their leashes, waste bags, and dog bed. I packed our own drinks, our bathroom necessities, and a snack. My husband did not help, yet he fully expected that everything would appear, as if by magic, the moment it was needed. Then we were on the road, and his driving is not my driving. He follows more closely than I would like, travels faster than I would choose, and does not settle into the right lane and stay there. Each mile offered my anxious mind another opportunity to rehearse catastrophe.

I know exactly who I would have been on that day before program. I would have arrived angry, resentful, and full of anxiety, and I would have wanted to eat something to soothe it all. I would have sulked. I would have walked alongside my husband in passive-aggressive silence, stewing over every unshared task and every lane change, so preoccupied with my grievances that the forest itself would have vanished. Or I would have settled at a picnic table and eaten instead of walking, numbing my feelings rather than moving my body and thanking my Higher Power for the day I had been given.

My program offered a different itinerary.

Step Eleven asks me to seek, through prayer and meditation, to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. I have learned that this step is not reserved for quiet mornings with a candle and a meditation book. It travels with me, even in the passenger seat.

So I paused. In the car, when my hands wanted to brace against the dashboard, I breathed slowly and offered a short, honest prayer: Higher Power, I cannot drive this car from the passenger side. Please grant me peace in this seat. I could not control my husband's following distance or his speed, but I could surrender my need to control them. Acceptance did not mean that I approved of every choice he made; it meant that I stopped fighting reality mile by mile.

I took a quieter inventory of the packing, too. The resentment was real, and I did not pretend otherwise. But I recognized that I had a choice: I could nurse the grievance all day, or I could set it down and, at a calmer hour, ask for help with my words instead of my silence. For that afternoon, I chose to set it down. The bags were packed. The dogs were happy. The day was waiting.

When we arrived, I was abstinent and did not need food to manage my mood. I clipped on the leashes and walked. The hills were robed in dark evergreen pines, interrupted by vivid patches of golden aspens, beneath a clear blue sky brushed with wispy clouds. My husband walked beside me, and for once I was not stewing. I was simply there.

Then we reached the shore. A brisk breeze rippled the steely blue-gray water, and small waves lapped at a light-gray gravel shore fringed with tall, dried golden grass. The mellow autumn sun laid a glittering trail across the lake, and I stopped in my tracks. Beside me stood an olive-tan metal picnic table, exactly where I once would have sought consolation in food. I stood beside it instead of eating at it. One of our dogs, small and tan with pointed ears, trotted to the water's edge and gazed out across it. Here it was, decades later, my own Lake of Shining Waters. The girl who once escaped into Anne's world stood there, abstinent and present, with no need to escape at all.

That is the gift of Step Eleven. Meditation is not only sitting still; sometimes it is standing at a lake and letting its beauty quiet the mind. Prayer is not only asking; sometimes it is the simple, overwhelming word thank you. I thanked my Higher Power for my husband, imperfect driver and occasional optimist about packing, who wanted to share this day with me. I thanked Him for my two dogs, whose uncomplicated joy is a daily lesson in living in the moment. And I thanked Him for a healthy body that can walk through the woods in autumn, a body I am learning to care for rather than to punish or to soothe with food.

Anne taught me as a child that the name we give something shapes how we receive it. Program has taught me the same lesson in adulthood. I can name a day by its frustrations, or I can name it by its graces. On that afternoon, with the light dancing on the water, I sought knowledge of God's will for me, and the answer seemed remarkably clear: Be here. Be grateful. Keep walking.

The drive home was no different from the drive there. But I was.

Trish B. New Mexico