11/26/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 26
I am grateful to still be feeling the considerable benefits of this gratitude practice, nearing the end of year five! This year more than any other, it is clear to me that I don’t have to feel great to feel grateful… but purposely cultivating gratitude does help me feel better. I think I will still close out this year’s 30 day challenge feeling like the bedraggled flower I was when I began, but I will also have set aside a good stash of seeds for next season. As for today specifically, I’m grateful for a yummy nourishing meal, a daylight walk in the woods with Rich, some good music, and a piece of pecan pie waiting for me.
11/27/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 27
I am grateful for good men. It is a gratefulness saturated with grief today. I am listening to the good man I am married to talking to his Aunt on the phone to let her know her brother, his father, passed away today. My father-in-law was the wonderful man responsible for raising the wonderful man I love. I am so sad, and wanted to let tonight be a moment of silence, but I decided to google gratitude and grief… and here is what Brené Brown says:
“Gratitude is vulnerability. I’ve had the honor of sitting across from people who have survived tremendous things. No matter what the trauma was, they said: “when those around me are grateful for what they have, I know they understand the magnitude of what I’ve lost”. So often we’re afraid to be grateful for what we have because we think it’s insensitive to those who have lost. However I think gratitude, in some ways, is healing for people.”
I always loved to be the one to make Bob a cup of coffee or pop open a beer for him, on the extremely rare occasions he’d indulge in either one. Tonight we toasted him using the glasses he gave us, and I imagine some popcorn will be popped in his honor in the next couple of days. (Yet another divine thing he is responsible for teaching my husband.) I’m posting one of my favorite photos of our dads from our wedding. I am so very grateful for the memories we get to carry forward with us, of this good man.
11/28/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 28
I am grateful for the solace of our backyard.
11/29/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 29
I am grateful for light. Back to church we went today, and this time the sun crested like a wave over the ridge, poured itself through great cylindrical columns into the coral reef of fungus arrayed across the layers of ancient trees, and sublimed in droplets from tiny jellyfish mushrooms swimming up a tree limb.
11/30/20
~30 days of gratitude~ day 30
I can tell that the gratitude challenge has had its intended effect on me again this year, because day 30 whizzed right by me without even thinking about writing a post, but was still a day in which grateful thoughts crossed my mind numerous times. I have tried to make a point over the last few years to remind myself that gratitude is not a class I’m taking for a grade, but I really feel that not showing up on the last day of class proves that I’m absorbing this lesson.
If I had a theme this year it might be the seeds of gratitude planted in the gratitude garden, and how they are an investment in my future nourishment. Whenever I notice and appreciate the snuggly kitty on my lap, the warmth emanating from the wood stove, or my hardworking husband coming home from work, it’s another seed in the seed bank. These dormant spirals of potential, storing an idea for next year, waiting it out through the harsh conditions of winter. So many adaptations to fly, float, cling, catapult, shake, or shatter, to make sure they deliver on the promise of future abundance. Many kinds of seeds require a little hardship to germinate when conditions become hospitable for growth; a freeze, some scarring, a soak in some acid, a trip through an animal gut, smoke exposure, or even trial by fire.
Somehow this fire-tested emblem of tiny, vulnerable faith, whispering its wisdom of diversity, became the mascot of gratitude 2020 and that’s just how this magic seems to work.
All of that to say, today I am grateful for nachos for dinner. Thanks for joining me y’all!
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