It’s 2 am, and I just got home from celebrating my birthday with some friends. I’m grateful that I discovered improv comedy and have found a wonderful creative outlet and a community of awesome people. And grateful for a karaoke bar with just enough people that I could sing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” without feeling guilty about taking up 9 minutes. Hey, Meat Loaf and I share a birthday, so I had to celebrate appropriately!
"Dark dawn. Streaks of pale red under a few high clouds. . . . Abstraction. Let it be." Thomas Merton. And for warm steel-cut oatmeal, and for all that I am privileged to take for granted in this lifetime.
Another beautiful sunrise, a pleasantly darkening evening, and the quiet pleasures of life throughout the day.
I'm grateful to have a really good therapist, someone I genuinely like and trust and can be completely open with. I've been struggling with some of my relationships lately, trying to deal with my social anxiety and difficulty reading people as I get closer to friends in the improv community, and this weekend's session really helped me. She listened well, asked all the right questions, validated some things that I was uncertain about, and helped me decide what to do going forward. I feel sooo much better than I did a few days ago!
Sometimes I need to make myself do this, lest I forget what good there is in the world, in spite of my limited vision. The beautiful tints and shades of autumn leaves; the solid feel of the earth beneath me as I propel myself around and about; the indescribable pleasure I get once I get into writing and editing, even when it seems I will never again get to such a place. The laughter of happy children -- and the hope they give me that this old world will keep finding its way to a better way of being.
This morning I got up, made coffee, packed a lunch for my son, had a good breakfast, got dressed, came downstairs and fired up the laptop -- all things I take for granted. But for most people in Gaza and many many people in Ukraine and in sub-Saharan Africa, and in the rest of the world such things are lux. I should do more than take this life for granted -- I should be grateful for it. And I am.
"We may receive something and not feel grateful. It is not necessary to struggle to create such a feeling. We simply feel what we feel. Such feelings are beyond our power, and it is a misuse of effort to try and . . . create feelings of gratitude. Rather, we should respond with an expression of gratitude. . . . Often it is the active acknowledgement of what we have received that stimulates true feelings of gratitude." Gregg Krech, Naikan, p. 59. Last night as I lay in my comfortable bed in my warm and dry house, as safe from life's pitfalls as one can be in this world, I realized how fortunate I am. I have food, shelter, and, as far as I can predict, time to do what I want and should. One really cannot ask for more of this life. Everything else is gravy.
My mother died on Monday at the age of 88 with 11 of her 12 children and a bunch of grandkids present. The absentee, my eldest brother, had just returned to Ottawa after 6 weeks at home with her. She died in her own bed, peacefully between breaths just slipped away. We had a great number of people call to express their respects, extended family, friends and people from the town, all of whom recalled moments when they were in her debt, words that healed or sustained them through tough times, food when they were hungry and a bed when they had nowhere to stay. I've never known anyone more selfless. We will miss her. I will miss her. For all that she has given us, I am truly grateful. Ní bheidh a leithdéid ann arís.
Sorry for your loss. It's all bittersweet, I know, that she's gone but there is apparently so much love being shown. She sounds like she was a very good person.
So sorry for your loss. Sounds like she leaves a wonderful legacy, and created much love. It's significant that you posted this in the gratitude thread. A part of her will always be with you. I translated your Gaelic tribute - There will never be another. Beautiful tribute.
Fresh clean water whenever I want it; the welcome struggle of finding room for the Thanksgiving turkey midst the abundance of food already filling the refrigerator; the bright clear November morning and the mild day to come. What did I do in my past life to deserve living this way in this world? I hope I'm making good use of it.
A nice 2.5 mile hike in the nearby woods, under a warm autumn sun, leaves crunching underfoot; being alive; a nice 2-hour nap.
Grateful that I don't live in Ukraine or Gaza; for the long mild descent into winter cold; for the friends I have made over the past year (and for the friends I had all along).
It's Thanksgiving here in the US, so this site seems mandatory for me. Thanks for my life and health, friends and family, and a safe, secure, and well-fed lifestyle. It would be greedy to ask for more.
Grateful for a nice breakfast, for the first (gentle and likely temporary) snowfall of the year, and simply for another day.
The wife of a friend in my YMCA yoga class told me in confidence that the friend is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, though he still drives, etc. and mostly lives his life as before. I had thought I noticed a sort of empty look in his eyes sometimes. A few days ago I was talking to him, we focused for a while on the women's college volleyball games, since I'm from Nebraska and he from Wisconsin, and they are among the top teams and had played here in Madison. Anyway, after we moved on to other topics, then he asked me what I thought about the recent volleyball women's volleyball game. As I write this I'm reminded of a comment once made by Garrison Keillor: "One nice thing about getting older is that you no longer have to worry about early-onset Alzheimer's." [paraphrased]. I'm grateful that as far as I know, I show no signs of Alzheimer's, even though I am older than my friend. And I have another friend, slightly younger than me, who is now dealing with Parkinson's. I am grateful I have as of now no signs of that. And lately I think often about my first friend, who died of cancer at the age of 9. I'm grateful that I have been granted far more years and far more experiences than he had.
Tomorrow is December 1st. I feel a certain gratitude that I've made it another year to the "yule month." December marks an ending but from darkness light grows.
"Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. It is wide open." Thomas Merton.
