Every once in a while I wish I could write something like, “Today I am grateful that I won several million dollars in the lottery. I am eliminating my debts, paying off my daughter’s college and graduate school loans, and helping my son with various of his financial challenges. I’m sending my therapist a check for a significant sum (which couldn’t repay the help she gave me without charge), and giving each of my siblings a whopping check so they can do whatever they want with it. Each of them in their own ways helped me during my times of struggle and while I can’t repay them I can at least add some ease to their lives. I would make several donations to a number of charities–including the Berkeley Food Pantry where I volunteered and developed friendships with my fellow volunteers. I am just getting started with all the good I plan to do with my new-found wealth.”
Yep, that would be sweet to write about. It is not completely lost on me that it is unlikely that I will win any lottery because I don’t play–heck, I don’t even know how to play. So if it is in the cards for me to have a vast fortune, it isn’t likely to come from lottery winnings. Alas. That is when I’m grateful for simple things. At this moment in time I am not likely to be grateful for big magnanimous things; right now I’m not living a big, magnanimous life. But I can continue to express my thanks for the smaller, more regular things that nonetheless grace my life.
I am grateful for relative good health, of being relatively strong and healthy in my body, mind, and spirit. Every day during my morning journal writing time I express the intention, “may I be healthy and strong in body, mind, and spirit.” Physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing is something I deeply appreciate, and though I would love to be more fit and healthy than I am, I am nonetheless grateful that I can move with ease, breathe fully and deeply, think clearly, and function relatively “normally.”
In the 15 months or so that I volunteered at the Berkeley Food Pantry I developed a deeper understanding of what hunger looked like. Each week we distributed groceries to all kinds of people from around the area. I saw college professors and students, immigrants, homeless people, veterans, mentally and physically ill individuals–all came to receive bags of groceries to sustain them and their families. More than once even I brought some food home with me. I had days when I struggled to figure out what I was going to eat. I came to understand from my own experiences being unemployed and struggling financially that sometimes things happen and you simply need help. I am grateful for the experience of working at the Pantry, and I remain deeply grateful for the food that I have access to. Such a basic human need and yet too many people go through their days with little or no food.
I have experienced hunger before, but I have not experienced homelessness. I am grateful to live in a comfortable little house on a small lot in a decent neighborhood. I am blessed to be employed and able to afford a home and all the requisite utilities to maintain it. It has been quite comforting during a time of upheaval and changes in my life to be able to settle into a space surrounded by my paintings and knick-knacks and photographs. My furniture, while nothing fine and perhaps a little worn is nonetheless quite functional and comfortable. I am quite content here in this home for me and my little dog.
Finally, I am grateful for my little dog. She is my roommate and while she’s not much for conversation, her presence is comforting. I experienced a pang of fear a few days back as I allowed myself to consider how I would feel if something happened to Honor. I realize how important it is for me to have another living presence in my house with me. Absent a human companion, she’s the next best thing: a loving, upbeat and entertaining, welcome presence in my house and in my heart. I am so grateful to have her with me.
Perhaps I won’t be in a position any time soon to write about really big, splashy things happening in my life. I don’t think I’m in that kind of phase right now. These days I am in a somewhat quieter, more regular phase of life. Nevertheless, I am content to find myself so and grateful to be where I am in this moment. As for the rest, we’ll just have to see what unfolds.
