Tonight I am thankful for the gift of time. Every day, every moment is a gift. So when I look back over the course of a day when I’m thinking about writing this blog, there are often moments I can focus in on and magnify as reasons to be grateful. Sometimes these are simple gratitudes, sometimes they are more profound. I am grateful for the moments themselves, for the recognition of the blessings they represent in my life.
Tonight I am late writing my blog because I spent a couple of hours watching a moving in my living room with my kids. I have an LCD projector so we were able to play the film through my computer, plug it into some stereo speakers I use with my iPod, and project it onto the living room wall. It wasn’t exactly dolby digital sound and the “screen” had a few bumps and picture hooks marring its surface. But the magic of watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 at home with both my kids was as the commercials say, “priceless.” I am grateful that I overcame my initial resistance to setting up all of the paraphernalia to screen the film. It was a most excellent way to spend two and a half hours.
Some days are just good days for no reason; kind of like some days feel bad for no reason. I’ll take the former any time. It has for the most part been an average kind of good day. Given this week’s mechanical bull ride that is my new metaphor for my life, having good day at the end of a week like this means the bull didn’t send me sailing and that I made it through to the next round.
Today I scraped some dollars together and bought two Christmas gifts for the two people on my extended family shopping list. Each year we are assigned a family member’s name as our person to buy for. I bought a gift for my person and another for my young nephew, who is also my godson. That’s it. I felt badly about it for a brief moment or two, but didn’t linger. In past years, I’ve enjoyed being able to purchase things for each member of my extended family. In leaner years I’ve exercised my creativity and made something. This year I haven’t been able to do much of either. Somehow, that has to be okay. My gift to them this year will be my presence and hopefully a little of my music, if I manage to pull together a small project between now and Christmas day gift opening festivities. Sometimes I am still working feverishly on Christmas day into the final moments before “open-open” is set to commence. This year I’m not sure I’ll pull it off. But I’ll give it a shot and see what I can manage.
I am grateful for the gift of time–time spent with siblings and their children. Always a somewhat raucous group at any given moment, sometimes we try to out “loud” each other. Probably about half or more of my siblings (and their partners) are introverted, but it seems that their children are less so. And there is a particular alchemy that happens when the generations mix together at the holidays. It is wonderful pandemonium. I’ll write more about that when the days of hanging out arrive. For now I will relish the moments that I’m in–watching the film with my kids this evening, sitting side by side with my daughter as I write this blog and she’s on her computer reviewing things from school, and all the other little moments that elicit gratitude. They really are everywhere if you know where to look.
© M. T. Chamblee, 2011
