Catherine Egan's Blog - Posts Tagged "gratitude"
On Gratitude
Dear Blog,
Here in the US of A it is Thanksgiving, and I am working on this whole gratitude thing. Of course, when I pause to think about it, I am deeply grateful for my ridiculous good luck. But seriously, blog, want to guess how often I have time to pause and think about it? Right. So I’m working on living it, on having gratitude be a natural ingredient in my minutes, even the really annoying minutes.
On paper, this has been an amazing year. That Guy got his dream job, complete with a Real Salary. I got my book published (does not come with Real Salary, but still, awesome!). LittleK has gone from baby to little boy, walking, talking, chomping cashews and raw tomatoes. LittleJ has started preschool and can leap small lego buildings in a single bound. We moved to a city and neighbourhood we like, and we have found wonderful friends here easily and quickly. The boys are healthy and, most of the time, happy. We are all OK. We are better than OK.
They like to hide under the covers on our bed together, calling “find us Mommy!” – and I feel like a jerk for too often not wanting to come find them because I just want to read my book, or write my book, or putz around on facebook, or whatever. I want more space inside my own brain. I want it all at the same time. I want to be with my beautiful children, snuggle them all day long, and I want them to leave me alone. I feel like a jerk for being tired and cranky, for whining at That Guy, for yelling at my kids (who, in my sort-of defense, can also be total jerks at times – I get it, the apple doesn’t fall far from the jerk tree, etc. etc.). I feel stretched too thin, and then I feel like a jerk for feeling stretched too thin because almost everyone I know is stretched so much thinner and they seem to be more on top of things than I am. I am not on top of things. I am way, way under things. I look up, and there is my life coming down on top me with the speed of an avalanche, messy and rushed and sleepless.
But this messy, rushed and sleepless life is everything I chose and choose, and I know none of this is guaranteed, that the shadow great love casts is the possibility of unimaginable loss. I know that my boys will never again be exactly who they are right now, and even if I want to laugh maniacally and then check myself into an asylum when people tell me to “cherish this time,” they are right, too. So I am practicing gratitude, looking at my life through gratitude-coloured glasses, training that little voice in the back of my head to stop saying “you suck!” and to start saying, thank you, thank you.
I am typing this sitting on the floor of our tiny bathroom, the part of our apartment I thought I’d hate but I don’t mind it really. My coffee is on the toilet seat. LittleJ is having a bubble bath, a “quiet” activity while LittleK sleeps. He is painting the walls with bubbles and carrying on a running monologue about the solar system, half-fact and half-invention (it turns out there are dinosaurs and bears on Mercury but we have to go there for the only shop in the universe that sells Magic Medicine – I can’t believe they’ve got such a total monopoly of the magic medicine market but he assures me this is true, we can’t get it anywhere else, and we are going to have to fight the bears and the dinosaurs, there is no way around it). He is mostly satisfied by an intermittent “wow!” and “oh really?” That Guy is making cranberry sauce. The turkey is in the oven. Lovely friends with lovely children are coming over in a few hours. After his bubble bath, LittleJ will watch the movie Brave, and I will try to make our apartment look less squalid, which is my only job on Thanksgiving. That Guy is the chef and will have none of my inexpert meddling with his Feast – I have had years to learn how right he is in this, and to be grateful for it.
So I’m working on the gratitude thing, for everything I thought I never wanted, for That Guy making cranberry sauce in the kitchen, for the boy in the bath and the boy in his bed, and for friends and family near and far. For the strange luck that has led me from that to this, to here and now. A while ago, I read this poem, and it resonated, for me. I’ve been thinking about it, and will copy it here, because it says everything so much better. Which is a poet’s job, right? (Oh poets, please – I don’t really think that! I have no idea what I think. I rarely think anything at all. I’m working on that, too.)
starfish by Eleanor Lerman
This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?
Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Catherine
Here in the US of A it is Thanksgiving, and I am working on this whole gratitude thing. Of course, when I pause to think about it, I am deeply grateful for my ridiculous good luck. But seriously, blog, want to guess how often I have time to pause and think about it? Right. So I’m working on living it, on having gratitude be a natural ingredient in my minutes, even the really annoying minutes.
On paper, this has been an amazing year. That Guy got his dream job, complete with a Real Salary. I got my book published (does not come with Real Salary, but still, awesome!). LittleK has gone from baby to little boy, walking, talking, chomping cashews and raw tomatoes. LittleJ has started preschool and can leap small lego buildings in a single bound. We moved to a city and neighbourhood we like, and we have found wonderful friends here easily and quickly. The boys are healthy and, most of the time, happy. We are all OK. We are better than OK.
They like to hide under the covers on our bed together, calling “find us Mommy!” – and I feel like a jerk for too often not wanting to come find them because I just want to read my book, or write my book, or putz around on facebook, or whatever. I want more space inside my own brain. I want it all at the same time. I want to be with my beautiful children, snuggle them all day long, and I want them to leave me alone. I feel like a jerk for being tired and cranky, for whining at That Guy, for yelling at my kids (who, in my sort-of defense, can also be total jerks at times – I get it, the apple doesn’t fall far from the jerk tree, etc. etc.). I feel stretched too thin, and then I feel like a jerk for feeling stretched too thin because almost everyone I know is stretched so much thinner and they seem to be more on top of things than I am. I am not on top of things. I am way, way under things. I look up, and there is my life coming down on top me with the speed of an avalanche, messy and rushed and sleepless.
But this messy, rushed and sleepless life is everything I chose and choose, and I know none of this is guaranteed, that the shadow great love casts is the possibility of unimaginable loss. I know that my boys will never again be exactly who they are right now, and even if I want to laugh maniacally and then check myself into an asylum when people tell me to “cherish this time,” they are right, too. So I am practicing gratitude, looking at my life through gratitude-coloured glasses, training that little voice in the back of my head to stop saying “you suck!” and to start saying, thank you, thank you.
I am typing this sitting on the floor of our tiny bathroom, the part of our apartment I thought I’d hate but I don’t mind it really. My coffee is on the toilet seat. LittleJ is having a bubble bath, a “quiet” activity while LittleK sleeps. He is painting the walls with bubbles and carrying on a running monologue about the solar system, half-fact and half-invention (it turns out there are dinosaurs and bears on Mercury but we have to go there for the only shop in the universe that sells Magic Medicine – I can’t believe they’ve got such a total monopoly of the magic medicine market but he assures me this is true, we can’t get it anywhere else, and we are going to have to fight the bears and the dinosaurs, there is no way around it). He is mostly satisfied by an intermittent “wow!” and “oh really?” That Guy is making cranberry sauce. The turkey is in the oven. Lovely friends with lovely children are coming over in a few hours. After his bubble bath, LittleJ will watch the movie Brave, and I will try to make our apartment look less squalid, which is my only job on Thanksgiving. That Guy is the chef and will have none of my inexpert meddling with his Feast – I have had years to learn how right he is in this, and to be grateful for it.
So I’m working on the gratitude thing, for everything I thought I never wanted, for That Guy making cranberry sauce in the kitchen, for the boy in the bath and the boy in his bed, and for friends and family near and far. For the strange luck that has led me from that to this, to here and now. A while ago, I read this poem, and it resonated, for me. I’ve been thinking about it, and will copy it here, because it says everything so much better. Which is a poet’s job, right? (Oh poets, please – I don’t really think that! I have no idea what I think. I rarely think anything at all. I’m working on that, too.)
starfish by Eleanor Lerman
This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?
Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Catherine
