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Category: gratitude

Multiplicity

Multiplicity

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When I was a full-time freelancer, I often wrote articles for Working Mother magazine. One of their mantras was that women (people in general, but their audience was women) are happier when they have multiple roles — when they’re not just mothers … but mothers and accountants or mothers and baristas or mothers and CEOs. Or, in my case, a mother and a writer.

So today, in addition to being grateful for another trip around the sun; in addition to being especially thankful that my family is together to celebrate — I’m also grateful for my work, for the opportunity I have to be creative for a good purpose, and for the new friends I’ve made around the globe.

Because it’s not just the work, it’s the many worlds it has opened for me. It’s another dimension of life that my own mother, as creative and work-oriented as she was, did not have.

Nothing is more important to me than my family, the amazing young women I’m proud to call my daughters. But I’m so filled with joy and gratitude that I live in a time when being a mother is not the only thing I am. The many roles I have a chance to play enrich my life daily. And today, especially, I’m so thankful that they do.

Welcoming May

Welcoming May

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I’m one day late in welcoming May, my favorite month. It helps that both my sister and I were born in it (though none of my girls, they’re summer/fall babies). It helps that the weather is warming and the summer is coming. And there’s a certain horse race in Kentucky that can usually be counted on to add some pizazz to the month.

When I was a kid, May also meant the end of school. It was almost more excitement than my little heart could take, a birthday and school’s out in one terrific explosion of excitement.

I’m far removed from those rhythms now, but I like to remember them. They remind me of an earlier, slower, more rounded time, when life flowed at a pace resembling sanity.

Now here it is May again … and so soon. But it’s always good to welcome it.

The Whoosh

The Whoosh

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For almost a year I’ve heard a whooshing sound in my right ear.  It didn’t bother me at first, but then I made the mistake of googling it. After that, I tried to ignore it. This worked for a while, especially when I was occupied by other worries. But as I approached the one-year mark I decided it might be wise to have it checked out.

“Ah,” said the doctor, “this kind of tinnitus can be caused by brain tumors and aneurysms and carotid artery blockages. You’ll need a CT scan … but no rush.”

I’d like to say he was kidding, but I don’t think he was. I made an appointment the next day, had a scan within the week — and heard yesterday that my tinnitus has a benign cause, thank God.

So now I can write about the whoosh and how it has become a companion of sorts. It’s the sound of my heartbeat, amplified. It’s the rhythm of life. The whoosh is a constant biofeedback session. When I’m aware of it most, in quiet moments, I try to still myself to make my heart beat more slowly. It’s a constant reminder to take life easy — even though I seldom heed it.

I wouldn’t wish a whoosh on everyone. But in a strange way, I’ve come to count on mine.

Gratitude on Ice

Gratitude on Ice

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It’s one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record here, with wind chills in the teens and temperatures that won’t make it out of the 30s. A perfect day to stay inside, chop onions, peel potatoes and baste the turkey, all in a steamy kitchen.

Though it’s tempting to put heat at the top of the list of things I’m most grateful for today, I’m going to push it aside for friends and family. We haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving here for a couple of years, Suzanne and Appolinaire having stepped in as the hosts with the most lately, but today the clan (minus Celia, who’s in Seattle) is gathering here, and by late afternoon there will be a full house.

It has lately been made clear to me (as if I didn’t already know it), just how important family and friends are. Not just for celebrations like today’s, but for the dreary mornings and frantic evenings of life. So on a day for giving thanks, my heart is full of love for the people who make life worth living for me. Not just today but every day.

Two Kinds of Gratitude

Two Kinds of Gratitude

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I don’t keep a gratitude journal — but I do keep a journal into which I occasionally pen thankful thoughts. And in the process of doing this I’ve noticed that there are at least two kinds of gratitude — forced and spontaneous.

Forced gratitude is what I summon when I’m walking to Metro on a cold, gray morning, wondering why I’m still slogging into an office, or on a leaden afternoon when the words aren’t flowing and it’s so late in the day that they never will. This is when I make the mental list: family, friends, health, income, productive work, words and music.

Spontaneous gratitude is what I feel when Copper is running at me with a Day-glo yellow ball in his mouth, all eagerness and joy. Or when I’m hanging out with the girls, individually or together, or even just talking with them on the phone. Spontaneous gratitude comes on walks or in quiet mornings like this one: clocks ticking (two of them), a cup of hot tea, an hour before I have to leave.

While it’s tempting to praise the latter gratitude over the former, in truth we need both kinds. One is our steady companion, the other a funny visitor, an outlier relative who once rode a motorcycle across the West. While you hope he’ll stop by often, you know he never will.

Almost Done

Almost Done

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It’s the 11th hour, an unusual one for me to write. The day is almost done instead of just beginning. But the house is as quiet as morning; the same clocks are ticking.

Tomorrow will be a weekend family getaway. I’ve loaded the car with groceries and will pack the perishables in the morning. Monopoly and Scrabble are going, and a deck of cards.  The dog and the thousand-piece puzzle are staying home.

You can’t wait for the perfect time; you grab the time you have and make it work. That’s how I’m feeling now, knowing that gratitude will well up soon, it always does.

Schooling

Schooling

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As part of my new job I’m writing and editing stories about people who have nothing. About school children from South Sudan dressed in tidy uniforms who must sit on rocks or tin cans because their school has no desks.

I think about the white boards and the wired classrooms here — and then remember the school in Toura where Suzanne and Appolinaire taught: the cinderblock walls and wooden desks that you see here.

It’s easy to romanticize learning, to say it happens wherever teachers are gifted and students inspired. But when children are cold or hot, when they cut their legs on the sharp rocks they’ve lugged to the school for seating, when they aren’t even allowed to go to school because they must help their families in the fields — there is no magic there. There can’t be until the basic physical needs are met.

I’m glad I have a chance to be reminded of this now, to write about people who have nothing. Because of the perspective they bring, of course, but most of all because their stories must be told.

No Fooling!

No Fooling!

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April crept up on me this year. I’d started thinking it might always be March — a month of unpredictability and extremes. A month of forced gaiety — of green beer and basketball.

But time has worked its magic. Thirty-one days of earthly rotation have brought us to a day of  foolishness and frivolity.

There’s been no chance to construct elaborate pranks — or even simple ones. It’s a day for relief and gratitude. No fooling!

Good News

Good News

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Good news from the heartland: A nephew and cousin — a young father battling cancer — has just learned that he is cancer-free. After months of grueling treatments and countless prayers to spare him, he has received the best news anyone can — that he is healthy, that he will live.

Now he can get back to his new wife and baby son, to his plans and dreams. He can get on, too, with the petty problems of life, which are now seen for what they are, no more than sticks and pebbles along the way, nothing like the chasm, the void, he has just traversed.

And for a while his experience will be a beacon to us all — until once again the sticks and pebbles seem like boulders and logs, and we let them bog us down; until the next time the world tilts crazily and we see that what we thought was important isn’t and what we seldom think about is all that really matters.

Sunsets in Arlington

Sunsets in Arlington

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Yesterday I saw the house where Suzanne and Appolinaire will live. It sits on a ridge in Arlington where, on a wintry day when the house across the street has been torn down and the new, big one not yet built in its place, you can almost see the Capitol dome and the red light atop the Washington Monument.

It’s an amazing situation, made possible by the generosity and hard work of two dear friends (who live next door). And the more of the place Suzanne and Appolinaire saw yesterday, the wider their eyes became.

This is not your typical one-bedroom apartment in the boonies or crowded share in Columbia Heights. This is kismet — perhaps what you get after living for years without electricity or running water.

Whatever the reason, come January, the happy couple will move in and inherit not only an enviable, close-in location but also an untrammeled view of the western sky.  A bank of kitchen windows will see to it that they end each day with views like this. And if I know them as well as I think they do, they will end each day feeling as blessed as they do now.