Uh oh. It’s the blinking cursor on the blank page = blank mind phenomenon. Fingers tapping idly on the keyboard, not pushing hard enough to add letters to the screen, just drumming in thought. Shifting the laptop more securely on my lap. Taking a swallow of water. (Not typing complete sentences.)
Writer’s block never killed anyone, thank goodness. At least I don’t think it has. I suffer writer’s block with great regularity, silently pleading for my muse to show up. When I write in my morning journal it’s a lot easier. For one thing I have a bit of a routine when I write each morning that ensures that the words flow. The biggest difference between my morning journal and my daily (usually nightly) blog is that no one reads my morning journal. So I can write complete drivel in it. I don’t, of course, but I could. I find that when I write in the mornings I am still quite mindful of my grammar and punctuation, and I am careful to write in as positive language as I can manage–I generally try to avoid most forms of the words “no” and “not” in my continuing effort to spin words and sentences in positive versus negative directions. Here in the evening, I am putting my words out in the blogosphere, and while I don’t have legions of adoring readers, I do have some and pretty much anyone in the world has access to the words I write in this blog. I take that pretty seriously.
Still, I have those days when I stumble around searching for creative ways to write about things I am grateful for, attempting to put new spins on things and not repeating myself too often. That is when I turn to simple gratitude: a listing of a few simple things for which I’m grateful. It’s essentially the gratitude list that most people suggest everyone takes time to write. It’s a good place to start on the journey of gratitude, especially for people who don’t like to write or aren’t confident in their writing abilities. It’s more about really thinking about and feeling the gratitude and capturing that and less about how good it sounds–unless of course you’re going to blog about it, then you probably care a little more about how it reads.
So here is my simple gratitude for this evening:
- I am grateful for the comforts of home. This morning as I stood in the shower, I expressed my gratitude for hot water. I hate being cold, especially in the shower. I am immensely grateful that I can afford to live in a house and to pay to heat it. I do not take this for granted, particularly on the days when the temperatures in our area hit the teens and low 20s. I am grateful for all the “basic” necessities of food, shelter, clothing, etc. What things we actually require to live, even relatively comfortably, are remarkably small in number, everything else is essentially a luxury. When I look around me, I am grateful for my “lavish” lifestyle.
- Each day I give thanks for my four-legged roommate. She continues to be a source of amusement and joy–always ready to play and folic. I still have much to learn from her in this regard. And she comforts me when I am sad or temporarily overwhelmed by one emotion or another. This morning I was praying for my friend’s mother who is facing a serious illness when suddenly I was overcome by an unexpected burst of grief and sadness over the loss of my mother so many years ago. I continue to be amazed that even after nearly 18 years without her living presence in my life I can still experience the pain of her loss. I breathed my way through it and, having no other human there to comfort me chose to connect with Honor stroking her head and talking to her as I sniffed my way through the brief storm.
- As I calmed myself from my grief burst, I took a few moments to offer a prayer for each of my children, allowing myself to feel the gap in my life at not seeing them as regularly as I’d like. I’m grateful for the relationships I have with each of them and look forward to connecting with them in person somehow sometime in the next few months.
Some days I have profound insights into gratitude as I continue on this journey. Even when I do, I still express simple gratitude as well, whether in this blog or in my conversations with others. My life is blessed in so many ways. And even when I face the blinking cursor on the blank screen I still know that though I might not be as articulate about it as I’d like on a given day, I will still have something to say. And for that–the ability to find words to express my thanks–I am grateful.
