My Gratitude Top Ten, by En.

You know when someone suggests something, and then it repeats and repeats, like the Universe is trying to send you Facebook ‘pokes’ or nudges or whatever?  I had a week like that.  About five different people, not in the same conversation, mentioned my blog/my recent article in Clever Girl Mag/journaling.  Each reference was thumb flick over a lighter flint, not catching, not catching, not… there’s a spark, a flicker, oh boy, a flame.

I can't blog again... can I?  Must resist...but why?

The truth is, my writing fire dwindled this year.  The hopeful little flame was extinguished, blown out by the Publishing winds that seem to blow smoke, not fuel the fire.  (Have we had enough of this analogy yet?)   I was disappointed by some of the interesting decisions from publishers and the blog become more of a chore that weighed heavily upon me, than something fun and frivolous. 

But today, *drum roll* my brain ignited!  And my fingers are twitchy for something more than my Christmas Card list and deleting the unbelievable barrage of Black Friday emails from chain stores who seem to offer another confusing sale every single day.  So… why not? 

I don’t have such illusions of grandeur that I think you actually want to know my Thanksgiving Day thoughts, but fuck it, I want to write them for me, because--bloody hell!!! I actually have TIME today, because words, ideas, patterns and thoughts make me happy.  Of course, I hope you know that I am grateful EVERYDAY, but as a more recent Pilgrim, who won’t be eating turkey, I thought I would share what this Brit on the Ridge is grateful for.  En's Top Ten!  So here goes:  In no particular order...

1)      I am alive.  The alternative is not appealing.  God, there seems to have been so much tragedy this year; people who I know, and know of, who will be sorely missed around the table today.  Every day we have a chance to make a difference; I am jolly grateful for that.

1b)   I am alive AND healthy.  I don’t often spend time thinking about the fact that I can breathe, walk, talk, think (sometimes), see, smell, hear, taste, speak, dance, flow through my yoga practice and feel my heart beating against my mat.  The human body is so, utterly amazing!  We are a mass of cells!  A body of blood, water, plasma, fibers, bone and cartilage, intricately evolved to function!!!  Our bodies are our own personal ecosystem hard at work.  Bloody brilliant really.

I visited my friend in hospital today, and yesterday.  Being ill is, of course, never fun, but there is that added sorrow about it, to be there on a holiday, without companionship or food.   

2)      Words.  Words are rather like precious jewels to me.  When I hear a new sparkly word it makes my brain buzz.  I’m listening to Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and to hear the British lexicon, especially the swear words, oh my God!  It is heaven!  (I highly recommend this book by the way.  And the Audible version is entertaining me no end.)

3)      Food.  Today, I get to prepare whatever I please!  So I’m taking time to bake eggplant lasagna.  It’s quite the ritual and something I never usually give myself time for, so I will enjoy the process and having saved Self the headache of trying to time the turkey, veggies, fixings and gravy all at the same time.  Cold lumpy gravy fills me with dread.

4)      My Mum and Dad.  It still rather amazes me that they are here in NEPA.  From 3,000 miles away they moved to Scranton.  We have many moments of raised tempers, furrowed brows, misunderstandings, but they are two people who consistently go above and beyond to help me.  And it totally tickles me that Mum, who went shopping yesterday so I could bake Self lasagna today, tries soooo hard and is so rigidly British!!!  She returned with the list with a few surprise items.  I had asked for a pack of ‘Sweet Italian sausage meat.’  I stipulated where she would find it and that is wouldn’t be in casing, but it would look like ‘mince’—which is what we call ground meat.  Sweet.  Italian.  Sausage meat.  She returned with this.  It looks like some ghastly Jimmy Dean pre-packed thing.  Horrors.  And yet, it was so endearing, because she wrote me a note that she asked the man at Wegmans and this was all he could find?  Was he twelve?  I mean EVERYONE else in NEPA knows what I mean by sweet Italian Sausage meat, right?  But I am grateful and I chuckle.

5)      Beanie.  She ran away again this morning—ah! The joys of squirrel chasing!—and as I gathered her to me, panting in my robe, in public, with bare feet that had carried scissoring legs over the slightly frosted grass tips and hot-footed over the gravel, I couldn’t help but let my frustration melt and just love her.  She lashed my cheek with quick flicks from her velvet tongue and fixed me with longing looks from those dark cherried eyes.  My little girl.
 

6)      Joy.  Those little moments that make one smile and feel like a teenager: like an unexpected song that comes on as one chops the onion and, without pause, recall and sing all the words, jump up, Beanie kangarooing at one’s feet, a 8 inch steel knife my new microphone.  (I didn’t say it was safe, I said it was joyous.)

7)      My job.  I love what I do.  I love helping people feel good about themselves, mentoring my consultants, cultivating a network of positivity, heart, hope and kindness.  I love the possibilities, the challenges, overcoming the challenges, the rewards, the advancement and having the freedom and choices to work when I want, with whom I want, wherever I want.  I am soooo  grateful I am not confined or limited to a grey job I hate, but every day I get to choose.  I have the potential of making a difference in someone else’s life.  That’s pretty awesome.

8)      My tribe.  Wow do I have some empowered, empowering friends.  Lionhearts, Yogis, Director-friends, Customer-friends, Greenridgers, Reader-Friends, Supportive Community Peeps who do good things.  It’s the people who make a place.  Thanks for making this my home.

 

 

9)    Coupling.  It gives me no small amount of delight to see my friends finding their people.  Whether they have traveled from PA to the west coast and found their new bearded beau, or upped sticks to St. Augustine, or found someone in PA right under their nose, it's a joy to see the ridiculous smiles on their beautiful faces.  I'm grateful that they are happy.

10)   Love.  Because it’s a pretty wondrous thing when at last you realize you can give someone your whole heart and expect nothing in return.  And it’s okay. 

Have a joyful, grateful, loving, meaningful, silly, music-filled, word-stuffed, food feast today.  Hug your people hard and avoid lumpy gravy.