Gratitude

I have often a desire to call my parents and say, “Thanks.”  For what?  Whatever I am doing for my kids that they are not grateful for!  I was likely unappreciative in my youth and I want to make up for it.  Thanks for reading to me, getting me out of bed every school day, fulfilling requests for fashion fads, taking me to the doctor for immunizations, giving me pizza money, going to the store at 9:00pm for poster board I forgot to mention I needed the next day, making sure I had toilet paper, soap and shampoo, clean underwear and socks.  My gratitude is tardy.    

Gratitude is defined at by Collins English Dictionary, 2009 at dictionary.com as follows.
                1.  a feeling of thankfulness or appreciation.

A word history is also offered from Online Etymology Dictionary.  Gratitude is from Latin gratus related to Latin gratia which gave us the word “grace.”  So gratitude and grace are related.  Some synonyms of grace listed are “attractiveness, charm, comeliness” and antonyms are “ugliness, stiffness.”

We choose how we present ourselves in the world, on which side of grace from gratitude we wish to fall – attractiveness or ugliness.  Ultimately I suspect our ability to feel gratitude (or not) affects how we appear to ourselves and others – attractive or ugly. 

I can offer a wave when someone lets me into traffic.  I might tell the insolent bag boy who just crammed all my groceries into sacks, “Thanks,” even if he doesn’t make eye contact because without him I’d be negotiating the candy racks from an ineffective, non-strategic position while bagging my own food.   I might send my children’s teachers a note telling them I am grateful they offer their time to educate my child.  Tell my spouse I’m glad he comes home to the chaos every day.  Tell the cosmos I appreciate the inventor of air conditioning because August in South Carolina is really, really hot.  Tell the Universe I am glad the sun is shining.  Tell my daughter that I am thankful for her dedication to success in math.  Tell my son, “Thank you,” for helping his sister tie her shoes.  Thank my youngest for every hug.  Be specific.  Find something.  If I elect to, I can show my kids what gratitude looks like.

I came across a quote from Meister Eckhart recently that stuck with me, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

 

Gratus

Breathe a bountiful belly full of thanks.  Let your stomach

rise and fill, body bathe in breath of gratitude, every  cell

grows with grace, flows in sheer sea.  Notice gifts, each

being an offering, self and other together connected,

eternal sharing, receiving the divine existence

exhaled from the mouth of God, ours.

Aspiring thus we become living.

Awake

I am having a hard time becoming cognizant today.  Seriously.  I’m wracking my brain to think of what happened in order to be so groggy today.  Did I stay up too late Sunday night?  No.  Drink an overgenerous amount of wine with dinner?  No.  Have to attend to a child in the middle of the night?  Need to get up mid sleep cycle to use the bathroom?  Have unpleasant dreams?   No.  No.  No.  None of the typical culprits offer rationale for the marshmallow brain and lead body I have as I struggle to become awake today. 

Dictionary.com defines awake.
                verb -
                1.  to wake up; rouse from sleep
                2.  to rouse to action; become active
                3.  to come or bring to an awareness; become cognizant (often followed by to)
                noun -
                1.  waking; not sleeping
                2.  vigilant; alert

My instincts as I strive to come to awareness direct me to investigate my behaviors or previous circumstances to find a mistake on my part or unplanned event because my body wants more rest.  Turns out nothing negative occurred.  Maybe it is not something I have done wrong either.  I could want more sleep because with Friday’s equinox summer is officially over, fall is here, the mornings are dark and this particular Monday is misty gray.  What human body wouldn’t want to stay in bed a little longer at least until some natural light existed?   I am typing in the dark!  The problem may not be something I did specifically but something I have done generally – agreed to a rather unnatural rhythm of daily American work and school week life. 

My family was lucky enough to sleep into daylight over the weekend.  There is something satisfying about waking naturally instead of via alarm, or in the case of my children, via me.  Although I’d like to consider myself a bit gentler than the blare of an alarm, I still am the thing that must rouse my kids from sleep.  I watch their bodies stretch and limbs unfurl, eyes blink and legs kick covers into a heap at the bottom of the bed.  They look at me in disbelief, certain I must be mistaken about the time.  I reassure them I am not.  They wish I was.  Then we roll into action.  Like perfectly trained puppies they potty, dress, eat, pack, depart, arrive. 

Active?  Yes.  Alert?  Maybe not, but on the way to awake following our established routine path of Monday morning.

Awake

Summer’s end morning, still deep dark despite

the glowing timepiece heralding death of night

marking the finish of restless mystic dreaming

warm breath revving ruby blood to offer oxygen

eyes and feet follow a path to the cosmic kitchen

where food offered is taken, eaten, unthought-of

day breaks, snaps into sight a single sleepy face

of what is to be in places yesterday once lived.

Revise

I am in the blessed place of revising my first collection of poetry, Garden.  This brings such energy and revisiting the poems motivates me.  While in this watery realization that the dream is becoming real, I am supposed to make corrections or changes before the work goes to print.  Permanent print. 

 

What if I miss something?  What if I am careless?  What if my prologue words are crystal clear to me and muddily goobidly gook to readers?  Is my personal love of double justified margins just a pain in the neck for my editor?  Am I too slow as I revise the book while simultaneously attempting to keep my family’s life running?

Dictionary.com provides the following definition of the verb revise.
1.  to amend or alter
2.  to alter something already written or printed in order to make corrections, improve or update
3.  British - to review (previously studied materials) in preparation for an examination

As I ponder the unalterable reality of printed work my mind draws lines to a recent conversation about regrets.  We nodded affirmatively that we might not change our life paths even if there are moments that make us wonder what we were thinking.  Moments where our own actions put us in an unpleasant place, felt like they were going to keep us down forever, or tested us beyond our expectations.  You know the conversation:  the would-a, could-a, should-a tap dance reflecting on our life choices. 

If I was offered the manuscript of my life in its messy first draft, what would I correct?  Would I risk missing a needed change?  Or alter something I would later wish I had left alone?  Would I be too darn picky about little things that don’t matter or are largely unnoticed by anyone else?  Can I attest with certainty that I would improve it?

We cannot edit our lives as poetry but don’t we sometimes really want to?  We mull what we might do if we had just one opportunity to do better at some place or moment in the past we determine today needs fixing.  I am sometimes guilty of believing I know more now despite the fact that “then” was “now” at the time I lived it.  I was certain about many things that don’t look so clear-cut in hindsight.  Is this ego thinking we know more than we did “back then?”  Maybe my knowledge resulted from “back then!”

I accept what has passed as indelible but not ensnaring.  We are not only our past because we have our present and future to choose (then hope to revise later?).  Time should be spent living new days and shutting down mental updates imposed on moments gone by.  Turns out, we only get one draft of each day so we’d better use our favorite pen and offer our best effort.  If I thought more about the permanency of my actions would that change the way I act today and maybe my yen to revise later? 

Why

My daughter can trap me in a round of questions.  Her initial inquiry may vary but when my response is, “No,” she asks, “Why?”  I explain and she again asks, “Why?” Off we go into what feels like an infinite loop – we never get out unless I shut it off.  I realize the futility of our discourse.  There is no satisfaction for either of us.  Even though I long to offer resolution I have not the answer to satiate the why and she both wants reasons and enjoys the game.

At dictionary.com Collins World English Dictionary offers this entry for the adverb why.
                a. for what reason, purpose, or cause?:  why are you here?
                b. (used in indirect questions):  tell me why you’re here.

Today I am the asking child with perpetual need to wonder why?  The difference for me is there is no joy in the game.  I have no desire to trap the recipient of my question in a tangle of queried responses.  I really want to know how come a lot of things occur. 

There is so freaking much tragedy that goes without explanation.  We can certainly begin with September 11, 2001 which is fresh in our hearts today after marking its ten year anniversary yesterday.  Then perhaps start across the globe and bring it on home again - conflict in Somalia, unrest in the Middle East, sex scandals in churches, dishonest corporate practices, abusive and dysfunctional families, unemployment, failed relationships, homelessness, gossip.  

I accept that my vision is a small speck of what is possible and I am limited in perception by human senses and a human lifespan.  But sometimes it sure feels hard to plod along not knowing why suffering exists and how we are to thrive amidst so much unexplained harmful human behavior.

That may be part of the answer to my seeking - human.  That is a variable, isn’t it?  Created in the image and likeness of Love and set on our way to make the best of it.  People imbued with free will and the nature of both good and evil swing the pendulum sometimes.  Grand scale destroyers really make a senseless mark.   I acknowledge the randomness of nature because it has no choice, but the acts of people are where my weary wonder rests today.  Certainly humans don’t control catastrophic weather or natural disasters but people do choose to harm one another or not.  We also can choose to help, to create, to uplift. 

Perhaps my needing to know reasons is a piece of my pain puzzle.  Will it ever all make sense?  No.  Why?

Why

Love, what can you teach
me without the volume
of pain, is there no thing

to gain another way
to say I’m strong, Love
enough to take your lesson

with question for what
about the answers I need
reason or cause, a test

eye cannot help but look
toward reprieve as the rest
of the story we are writing.

Five

I know five isn't typically considered sacred.  Seven, twelve and forty get a lot of holy mention and I accept their awesome place - days of the week, number of months, days in the dessert, etc.  I want to mull a number that turns up divine for me all the time, five.

Dictionary.com offers five entires in the wonderful definiton of five.
1.      a cardinal numer, four plus one
2.      a symbol for this number, as 5 or V
3.      a set of this many persons or things
4.      a playing card, die face, or half of a domino face with five pips
5.      (informal)  a five-dollar bill

What is five for me? 

The number of people in my household both growing up and at present.  I swore I would have an even number of kids so my family would have an even number of members.  Didn’t work out. 

Five is the time period in minutes offered by mothers to warn their children that it is almost time to go, time to eat, time for bed, whatever Mommy says should happen.  This set of five minutes comes from a desire to keep to the child-rearing protocol of allowing lead time into transitions.  Hypothetically providing lead time into transitions makes them easier.   

Five is also the age in years at which a child begins to figure out the arbitrary meaning of five minutes when Mommy announces it.  Mommy minutes often have a wide range of durations.

Five is the number of pounds I am storing in my thighs in case of emergency.  I am giving myself this idea about “smart storage” because, really, it is the number of pounds I estimate that I am unwilling to give up entirely chocolate cake or Waffle House to lose.

The number of miles over the posted speed limit I feel I can drive safely without worry of losing control or being ticketed by a police officer is five.

Toes per foot and fingers per hand.  These remarkable digits are capable of dexterity from birth to one year that fades over time and is never again matched.  Serioulsy, watch the individual movement of a newborn’s toes – amazing!  Seems once we learn to walk toes need to work as a team.

The number of work or school days in a standard American week.  

Five is the magic number of minutes everyone claims to need before getting out of bed.

The number of Krispy Kreme glazed donuts a person should know is probably one too many to digest comfortably, really.

The number of steps beyond which I will likely deem a recipe not worth the trouble.

Cards needed in a standard poker hand.

The number of hours past my usual time I am writing today!  Seems I had a languid holiday morning with my family and gave myself five mommy minutes more to sleep, then to eat and another set to get started on my blog.

Confined

Life is an unpredictable sort of thing.  This can be difficult for me because I am by nature a planner.  I make daily lists and agendas.  When my expected course of a day is destroyed I sometimes stand like a deer in headlights paralyzed by the unknown approaching.  But, I am learning (maybe that is the point of the unending stream of unexpected events that keep arising) that life simply will not conform to my plans much of the time, particularly in the primary work I have chosen right now – mothering.  Turns out I will spend today trying to balance tending a sick child with writing and housekeeping.  Since I spent a large part of the night awake and stroking my uncomfortable child I must do it on a half-awake brain.  My tired self is neither my most patient nor resourceful.  I struggle not to feel confined because one of my children is home sick.      

 Dictionary.com offers the following definition for the adjective confined.
1.  limited or restricted
2.  unable to leave a place because of illness, imprisonment, etc.
3.  being in childbirth; being in parturition (the process of bringing forth young)

I could not repress a smirky smile at the irony of typing the third entry from the above definition!  I had forgotten that meaning of confined.  How appropriate for my musings today.

Equally appropriate I suppose is the desire for things to move in an orderly way according to plans.  Schedules make work and school days progress effectively for large numbers of people.  I am too spacey to give up the lists altogether.  They really do help me.  But, perhaps I could consider if my lists are what sometimes keep me confined?    I am acutely aware that my day of cancelled plans is nothing like evacuating for a hurricane or, worse yet, recovering from its destruction as so many residents of the eastern United States have this week. 

My deliberation then for this day may be about keeping my Aries head up and looking instead of lowered and ramming my horns into the day trying to keep the goals as the steadying force when the healthy rearing of my family is my central, overriding ambition.

Her, Ram Child

Run, ram child in your fence feeling mowed
clover lying limp under foot
scenting the air green and pink
pillow clouds make pictures you imagine but
cannot breath.

Pray, ram child that your pickets parading right
angled edges abruptly turn
changing the path, dirt clods and rock
rambling hills hide other sides stillness thinks
might be greener.

See, ram child in a pasture perfect postcard
pictures mate and offspring, food
and stream calling home to what is
expected, projected safe and known with
restful heart.

Relax, ram child while shears shape you to
your skin see yourself as more than
just free to go because a fulfilled ewe
gave people in your meadow wool to keep
them warm.

Adventure

I recall boldly announcing to my four housemates at 2:00 in the afternoon, “Let’s just go for an overnight trip.  We only need a toothbrush, underwear and clothes for tomorrow.  We can be in the car in thirty minutes.  I’ll get CD’s and snacks.  This is an adventure!” 

Is this memory from the undergrad years of my life?  Were the CD’s Adam Ant or Cyndi Lauper?  No.  It was two days ago.  The CD’s included an audio book about Ramona by Beverly Cleary.  The cooler was packed with organic milk and crackers.  The peoples’ ages did average 21 which cracks me up since I am double that as is my husband (nearly) - clues that the other participants were our kids, none of whom have reached the teen years! 

The Collins English Dictionary 10^th Edition entry retrieved from Dictionary.com defines the noun adventure:
1.  a risky undertaking of unknown outcome
2.  an exciting or unexpected event or course of events
3.  a hazardous financial operation; commercial speculation

Our adventure included stops at the state line rest area to use the facilities and pick anything we each wanted from the vending machines.  Along our drive we bought fast food burgers and milkshakes.  We arrived in time for several rounds of Boggle and tuck in stories before bedtime.  We ate cereal, apples, cheese or peanut butter crackers, tuna salad and prepackaged pudding for our remaining time away.  What was it about this descriptively ordinary undertaking that made it adventure?  The attitude.   We named it adventure, therefore it was.  Fabulous! 

Day to day predictability can keep us plodding along.  Monday brings school, work, a meeting, an afternoon class, errands, blah blah . . . whatever.  What can we do to make these things feel exciting or imbued with unknown outcome?  I’m not advocating trashing decent dietary living but one day with unexpected food plans felt great!  I don’t assert that a single pair of panties in a plastic grocery sack is proper preparation for most days, but this one time it was fun.  It felt like we were taking a risk, albeit a small one.  I’m wondering how to feel open to unexpected events or outcomes in my approach to life which seems necessarily directed by schedules and lists to keep everyone where they are supposed to be promptly and prepared.  If I examine my existence the whole thing could be adventure if I consider how often planned things really do have unknown outcomes – marriage, motherhood, writing, a new recipe, Zumba.

We returned hungry for substantial food.  But, we reveled in the simplicity of unloading the car, usually a monumental chore after a trip.  We carried one light bag and a handful of trash apiece.  I didn’t mind being the one to go back for the cooler because it was only my second trip and it barely weighed a thing!  My youngest child quipped as she trotted toward the house bare-footed and clutching her sneakers, “That was a good adventure.”