Today is another one for simple gratitude. I woke this morning at 5:30 and have been going pretty much nonstop for the better part of the day. It is now after 9 p.m. Pacific Time and my brain is shutting down almost as fast as the cursor is blinking and these words are clacking across the screen. (Well, perhaps not quite that fast.)
I am grateful for a good day at the Berkeley Food Pantry. We had a larger complement of volunteers this week than last–last week we were extremely short-staffed on one of the busiest days we’ve had on any Wednesday since I started working there 14 months ago. Today we were down a person or two, but we had sufficient folks to serve the clients, and the number of clients was smaller by about 35 families than it had been last week. And, we gave out a whole chicken to each family; this after several weeks of not being able to provide much in the way of meat protein. And we had peanut butter for the families with children. These things might not seem like a big deal, but it makes such a difference to be able to provide these things to the families and I must admit to being a bit forlorn when we can’t offer them. In that regard, today was a good day.
I am juggling a lot of details these days–I have a lot to do in a vey short period of time. I was telling my friend the other day that I have no idea how my head stays attached to my shoulders, that with all the stress and strain of managing multiple major projects and details it ought to come flying right off. She calmly replied that it was a good thing then that we really don’t have to do anything to keep any of our body parts attached. I laughed, which was exactly what I needed to do in the midst of such seriousness. I am grateful that I have actually been laughing a bit more lately, smiling too, without having to do it on purpose. There was a time in the midst of really intense pressures I was feeling, when I used to laugh and smile on purpose. I did my smiling “exercise” every morning when I looked into the bathroom mirror as I got ready for work, and every evening as I brushed my teeth in preparation for bed. Smiling and laughing “on purpose” has the same beneficial health impacts on us as when we are genuinely smiling or laughing at something funny. During a talk I heard a few years back by a “certified laughter leader,” I learned that simply by engaging in the exercise of “fake” laughing, your body releases the feel good hormones (endorphins and such) just as it does when you’re laughing for real. Laughing for me has been nice lately though, because I’ve been laughing for real. And wow, does it feel good.
So tonight I am going to spend a few moments of mindless web surfing (finding things to laugh at) before settling down to rest. The night time prayer reminds me that “the night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.” I believe I will.
