Lessons in Gratitude Day 85

I find that today I am grateful once again for the transformative power of music. Music is able to evoke in me any number of emotions. When I hear certain pieces I want to jump up and move around; when I hear others it pulls on my heartstrings and makes me want to weep. If I am in a particular mood and can’t find a way to express my feelings, sometimes I can find just the right piece of music to give voice to what I am feeling. I’ll listen to it over and over again allowing both the music and the emotions to wash over me. Every day, usually in the evening, I play my guitar. Sometimes it’s only for a few minutes (particularly if I’ve waited until late in the evening), but I committed to playing and singing every day. It’s kind of like a promissory note–though I’m not playing and practicing as if I had a big performance coming up, it is keeping the machinery oiled in for the time when I am ready to perform more publicly. I have no idea when that time will come, but it makes sense to be ready for it.

I want to acknowledge, as I think about how incredibly grateful I am for the place music has in my life, that I must likewise acknowledge the gift, so often taken for granted, of being able to hear. I have a colleague who has been deaf since birth, and a good friend who is hard of hearing. One has never “heard” music at all, and the other is able to hear because of technology and is able to enjoy music. It reminds me that being able-bodied is not to be taken for granted and that experiencing beauty does not necessarily require able-bodiedness. Joy, love, appreciation of beauty, wisdom, calm, equanimity, so many other states of being emanate from an inner reserve; and while our senses and our outer bodies serve as vehicles for connecting us with those states, they are not necessarily a requirement. I am grateful that each of my physical senses work relatively well and that beauty is accessible to me through them.

I have a lot to learn still about a lot of things. I could find that daunting, but I don’t really. I am simply acknowledging that learning happens every day, whether I ask for it or not. It’s like gratitude in that way–every day I learn something just like I find something every day to be thankful for. Each day provides a new opportunity for me to allow in some new revelation. Now that’s easy for me to say on a day when I’m feeling pretty good, but when my energy is low it’s a little harder to be so expansive. That’s partly why I keep writing this blog. It reminds me to look a little deeper, not to stay stuck in whatever external circumstances might be affecting my current mood. My mood is temporary; and if I’m willing to dig just a little deeper I’m more likely to hit that inner reserve I mentioned earlier. This blog is one tool for tapping into that reserve and bringing forth from that place. Writing, along with music are two important areas of my life for which I am exceedingly grateful.