Lessons in Gratitude Day 741

Posted on July 24, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for the return of my friend, Honor. Honor is my four-legged companion who a little over three weeks ago suffered a small but costly injury when she was attacked by another dog. My sister and brother-in-law bore the brunt of the financial expense, for which I am grateful because I could not have afforded the cost of her care. The emotional costs to Honor, me, and my sister and brother-in-law (the attack happened at their house) have also been burdensome. The attack was brief but vicious: a previously friendly dog who’d been staying at my sister’s house while her human was away suddenly snapped at Honor and in an instant had torn the lower part of Honor’s ear off. I told the full story of the calamity a few weeks ago in the blog for Day 718, so I won’t recount it here. Suffice it to say that the road to recovery has been slow but steady.

Initially Honor wore only the “cone of shame,” (the translucent plastic collar so dubbed in the movie “Up”) to keep her from scratching her ear and disturbing the bandage (which was stapled to her head…) But even though she could not scratch, she shook her head so frequently and vigorously, trying to shake loose the uncomfortable bandaging that she aggravated the injury. When she went for a bandage change a few days later, the vet decided to wrap her head in a sort of cloth hood that nearly covered her entire head. It immobilized both her ears, which while no doubt good for allowing her injured ear to heal made her completely miserable.

"Sister Mary Honor" in her old school habit.

For two weeks she wore the combination of the hood and the cone of shame–she reminded me of an nun in an old-fashioned habit they wore when I was in Catholic school as a child. I removed the C.O.S. when I fed her and took her outside to do her business (it’s nearly impossible to smell the grass and telephone poles with that big cone on and virtually impossible to reach her food and water bowls), but never removed the hood. It is safe to say that for nearly a fortnight I had a very depressed dog on my hands. I took her to work with me for a few days so she would not feel totally wretched, and so I could keep an eye on her and comfort her as needed Even with the cone off she felt awkward and uncomfortable in her hoodie, and I couldn’t interest her in any of her favorite her toys.

Finally, on last Wednesday she went back to the vet to have her sutures removed and check on her progress. My brother-in-law picked her up for me as he had all four return visits to the animal hospital. When I went to pick her up from the house I saw that the vet had removed the hoodie, but Honor still had to wear the cone. It was the first look I got at the ear itself and I was startled by the size of the chunk taken out of it. Still, I could tell she was glad to be liberated from the awful hood and I was glad to get her home. For the next few days I put the cone back on her only overnight or while I was at work: times when I couldn’t watch her and worried that she’d scratch the scab off and aggravate the wound. Then last Sunday I knew my pup was on her way back to being herself–for the first time since the awful incident three weeks earlier, she was fully interested in running after and retrieving the tennis ball. I can’t tell you how glad I was to have her back: excited, wildly enthusiastic, and funny.

Honnie the Beautiful, July 24, 2013

I am so grateful to have the presence of my four-legged friend in my life. She continues to be a model for me of unconditional love, boundless enthusiasm, and joie de vivre, even in the aftermath of a scary attack and the subsequent discomfort of the various apparatuses she was forced to wear. Today as she gleefully ran down the tennis ball toss after toss, trotting back with it in her mouth, making me try to shake it loose from her so I could toss it again, I was reminded of just how much my little companion means to me. I am glad she’s back and grateful to my sister and brother-in-law, the vets and technicians at the hospital, and everyone who had a hand in helping her to heal physically and emotionally. For the manner in which this has all turned out, I remain most deeply grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 740

Posted on July 23, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I good all my meals for the rest of the week. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, and I’m relieved to have done it though it means that I ate dinner late (after 8 p.m.) and am starting this blog later than usual. I am thinking I need to approach my blog similarly: write a few days worth of blogs and then feed off of them for the rest of the week. It’s an interesting idea and one worth thinking about as I slowly begin to wind down the writing of this blog and think about my exit strategy. I am grateful this evening to be able to reminisce once again about overcoming some of the challenges I faced back in early May of 2012. Even though I experienced my “series of unfortunate events” in 2011, the aftereffects lingered through much of 2012 before (and even a bit after) I moved across the country. This particular post spoke to the important lessons I was learning about being humble and vulnerable and asking for help. This is still a muscle I need to keep exercising lest I allow it to atrophy, by reaching out to people around me to both ask for and offer help when I am able to provide it. Please enjoy this post from Day 297:

Among the many valuable lessons I’ve learned throughout the tumult of 2011 was how to open myself up and be more willing to show my vulnerability to others. I have always been introverted, being relatively quiet and shy; but even more than that am a very private person. I keep my business to myself and work hard to figure my own way through whatever challenges present themselves. The influence of familial and societal culture, as well as some hard knocks along the way seemed to underscore the value of learning to rely on oneself and not necessarily trust others, particularly if it meant showing your “weaknesses.” So for me to share the various vicissitudes of my life with anyone other than close members of my family (and not even some of them) is fairly unusual for me. I had almost always been the one to whom people told their troubles to and helped them think through issues and problems, offering a calm, listening ear and sage advice. The shoe being on the other foot felt quite odd for a while until I got hold of myself reminding myself that no one could help me if they didn’t know something was wrong. Which of course highlights another important lesson learned,that of learning to ask for help. Yep,I wasn’t too good at that one either.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be good at asking for help (or its corollary asking for what I need); but I have gotten a lot better. Fearful of being a pest, a moocher, someone who people hate to see coming because she pesters them for things, I have stoically kept my needs to myself. But that has eased significantly. And what I realized in the process is that learning to receive from someone else offers them a gift of sorts, particularly if it is someone whom I have helped in the past. When I help other people, as I’ve done throughout most of my life, it’s kind of like a deposit in a karmic bank; it comes back in some form or another. And while getting something back has rarely been my motivation for doing things for people, I believe that as I continue to open up and reach out for assistance,assistance will come from one place or another. I am grateful for this.

These have been some of the most difficult days I’ve experienced in many years,and my life continues to be far from stable and orderly. But I remain grateful for the many valuable lessons I’m learning and the wisdom I’m gaining about how to interact with the world,about how to open my heart and let other people in. It’s apparently not as scary in here as I’ve tried to make out–to them or to myself. I also remain grateful for those few close friends and family who are with me,as best I allow it,as I walk this path toward my what’s next. While I’ll be glad to see the other side of things I’m grateful to be standing strong in the midst of the unknown and smiling.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 739

Posted on July 22, 2013 by mtchamblee

When I take stock of all that happens over the course of a given day, all the potential for amazing discoveries, total catastrophes, and run-of-the-mill mundanities that populate my life over the course of a given day, I am astonished by how many opportunities I have to see the blessings and express gratitude. If I were to chronicle my unfolding day, minute by minute, hour by hour, there are thousands of moving parts, hundreds of decisions being made, a convergence of chance, synchronicity, coincidence, and opportunity that are almost too staggering in their magnitude and complexity to even contemplate. I am grateful tonight for the three- or perhaps 65-ring circus that is my daily life.

From the time I become dimly aware that I am alive each morning, as the hammer and anvil and stirrups and cochlea in my ears send impulses through my auditory nerve to my brain telling it that some noise is dragging me from unconsciousness into wakefulness, to the moment I lift my head from the pillow, aim my arm in the general direction of the snooze button and whack it, only to repeat the process seven minutes later, to the moment I sit myself up and swing my feet to the floor, I am aware that I am blessed. In those moments that it takes me to wake and sit up and contemplate my first moves of the day I sometimes take the time to remind myself what a miracle each of us truly is. There’s simply no other word than miraculous for the complex dance of cells, tissues, organs, nerves, systems and processes that allows me to wake and start my day. In the testimonies of the old church folk, as well as in some of the old school hymns, you thank the Lord for, “waking me up this morning, and starting me on my way.” And why not, it’s miraculous.

Every step along the way in a given day this miracle repeatedly plays out in countless little ways: my ability to see, my reflexes, how I can type this blog without looking (well hardly at all) at the keyboard. A million, zillion ways. Every weekday I safely navigate my way to work, piloting my vehicle through thousands of cars that are all going in the same direction as I am, all of us driving several-ton vehicles hurtling in the same general direction at excessive speed. How we weave in and out amongst each other without constantly banging into one another is…well, miraculous.

I suppose the trouble with using a world like miraculous is that it gets overused so much that it barely has meaning. And yet what else can you call this complex dance of life, these myriad interactions of seven billion people on the planet? I am open to suggestions. And I like the idea of the miraculous, of the unexplainable. I defy anyone to explain some of these phenomena other than  in terms implying miraculous. Yes, many things can be broken down and explained in their component parts, but when you throw it all together in this cosmic stew that is one individual’s life on the planet, interacting with the other 6 billion, 999 million, 999 thousand, 999 people, chaos erupts and you can’t explain anything. All you can do is shake your head and shrug, “Miraculous.”

I am grateful this evening to not only not have it figured out, but to not need to. I accept miracles at face value. I don’t need to understand all the complexities and wonders of the world around me. I see and accept them every day for what they are. I am so appreciative for the awareness that dawns on me from time to time about just how miraculous and precious my life is and to not take for granted all that it takes simply to wake up in the morning. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. And for the life I have and for my awareness of the wonder of it all within and external to me, I am most mind-blowingly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 738

Posted on July 21, 2013 by mtchamblee

I still recall very clearly the first summer I decided that I wanted to play the guitar. I was twelve, bored, and had always been inspired by my mom’s songs and wanted to be like her. She had four or five guitars around the house and I asked her if I could play one one day. She gave me a chord encyclopedia and one of her old acoustics and sent me on my way.

The learning was slow and unnatural at first. I first remember doubting that I was even made for playing; that my fingers could stretch across the frets. The encyclopedia showed me where to put my fingertips for each chord, and slowly but surely I learned chord progressions. Sometimes, very slowly! I would play until my fingers bled and blistered. And I was never frustrated when I was learning to play. Patient, hungry for knowledge and skill, and falling more in love every day.

What I remember most clearly is learning the songs my mom passed down to me. We would sit on the back porch on summer days and she would show me new techniques and chords to her songs. Not only was it the beginning of important self expression for me, but also a special bond that me and mama would share. When I got my own guitar for my thirteenth birthday, we were practically inseparable. I moved from learning my mom’s beautiful songs to writing many of my own. Songwriting became an important avenue for expressing feelings of love, pain, truth, and grief.

When I was 17, I had the pleasure of attending a performance camp for young girls and women at the Institute of the Musical Arts in Goshen, MA. The two-week camp was nothing but music, music, music! I came back to California, sat down, and wrote four or five songs in the span of a week. I learned then and there that being around other musicians and songwriters was critical to my own creative flow. I am thrilled to be returning there, almost six years later, in a few short weeks to celebrate my first true love – music.

My guitar and my music is like an on again, off again relationship with no hard feelings. We may not speak for a while, but the next time we do, we pick up from where we left off. Today, I put new strings on my guitar. They hadn’t been changed in quite a while, and sounded simply delightful. Serenity – that’s her name – was grateful for the change. In every act of care I show my instrument, I am reminded of the love, joy, and peace in each melody.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 737

Posted on July 20, 2013 by mtchamblee

We are under a severe thunderstorm warning. Somewhere in the far distance I can hear the beginning rumbles of thunder. I live in a large county, so when we have a warning I don’t always take it too seriously. We had one yesterday and other than it getting dark and windy for a few minutes, it blew right past and we never saw a drop, let alone any thunder or lightening. Still, it might be a good time for a brief posting this evening.

I spun the wheel and landed on Day 4, posted back on July 3, 2011. It was a posting about the impact that music has had in my life. I’m going to take that as a sign that tonight will be a good night to play my guitar and sing. So as the thunderstorms rev up I’m going to take a break from high tech electronics in favor of low tech musical instrument–if you can call a 12-string guitar low tech! I’ve posted pieces of this particular blog before. Feel free to pass on it if that’s the case. But after some of the more challenging subjects I’ve experienced and taken on in writing this week, a message about music as a salve for my soul is just the medicine I need. Perhaps it might be fore you as well. Enjoy, and be grateful!

This afternoon I had the opportunity to sit outside and enjoy the company of friends while listening to a singer-songwriter play her guitar and sing for a couple of hours. I thought about my own songwriting and the role that music has played in my life in the nearly 40 years since I first picked up my guitar.

When I was in high school in the early 70s, I wanted to be a writer–fiction mostly,but I also wrote poetry. It was frustrating to me that all my poetry rhymed. I grew up in an era when non-rhyming poetry was much more hip and cool than verse that rhymed. But no matter what I did my rhyming poetry was always way better than anything I ever came up with that didn’t have rhyme or a particular meter. I was quite dejected about this for quite some time. Then at age 15 I started playing the guitar and at one point it finally dawned on me that I wasn’t writing rhyming poetry–I was writing song lyrics!

Once I reached that realization, my life was literally no longer the same. My songwriting gave me a voice I’d never had before,a way to express feelings and fears, sadness and angst I would not have been able to express to another person. It allowed people to know me in a way that I was too shy to otherwise make myself known. I could offer my music as a personal gift to friends and family. It was something uniquely mine.

Music was a salve to my soul. When I was sad I could pour that sadness into my music and the sweet sounds that came from my guitar and singing gave voice to that sorrow. I could be angry, I could be lonely, I could be many things through music that I didn’t know how to be without it. And that emotion often reached out and touched the people who listened. There was an exchange of energy and spirit between me and the listener that was palpable to each of us. Music has that kind of power.

So today as I sit writing this I realize how grateful I am to have the gift of music in my life and I realize that it’s been far too long since I actively gave myself over to it. I think when I finish, I’ll get up and tune my guitar and refresh myself with a heart song. Nothing quite revives my spirit as when I connect to the divine through music.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 736

Posted on July 19, 2013 by mtchamblee

Hallelujah it’s Friday. I stayed home, working on a variety of work-related things while nursing a sore back. Not sure what I did to it, but it has been troubling me since early in the week. And oh what a week it’s been. One need only read this blog and my morning journal to experience the ride on Mephisto that this week has represented for me–up and down, side to side, back and forth. And now it is relatively quiet, all things considered. After a week like this, after riding the bull, one can feel like things are still moving even though you’ve gotten off the ride. It was kind of like after the 12 hour drive home from Gainesville a few weeks ago: for hour after I’d gotten out of the car, I still felt like I was moving, still rolling down the road. After this week of emotional bull riding, feeling relatively quiet and still has been a blessing, even if just for a little while.

In the quiet and the stillness I can feel my exhaustion again. At least in the bustle and rush of the work day I can ignore the emotional and mental exhaustion resulting from all the hateful rhetoric and vitriol surrounding  recent events unfolding on the national stage. People all over the country and around the world are talking from all sides of the racial ad social spectrum. I have found some of the comments deeply disturbing and painful in their ignorance, hate, and negativity. How, O God, does one find the good in all of this?

I spoke with my son this evening–he called me as he was on his way to work. I think about him a lot and pray often for his safety. As a single mom I prayed for and worried a lot about my son and how he would fare in this world, particularly once he moved away from the shelter of my home, out of my sight and protection. He lives on his own now, 2800 miles away in one of the most dangerous cities in the country. When all is said and done, however, all I can do is what I’ve always done since he was a little boy that I sent out the door to go to school by himself: pray. And so I do, for him and my daughter.

I am grateful that both of them are doing relatively well, in spite of some of the challenges they’ve faced in their young lives. I can only pray that they continue to do and be well in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. That and continue working to try to make the world they’re walking in a better place for them and their children than it has been for so many people who have not been as blessed and privileged as we have been.

I am grateful to have been raised in a family that valued education and could afford to help us get it. In 1962, when I was five years old, my parents moved out into the “white neighborhood,” an area where many people didn’t want us and weren’t afraid to let us know it. (We had to “trick” the realtor into selling us the house–a white friend of ours actually pretended to be the buyer, or so my recollection of the story goes.) As a child, I was only dimly aware of the racism and distrust that surrounded us in that neighborhood. I attended Catholic school in which my siblings and I were probably the only Black people in the school. Life was interesting, and while it was isolating in its way, we got good educations and our parents’ expectation was that we’d all go to college. And so we did, only one of us didn’t finish a degree.

That education has opened doors for each of us that are not accessible to others without it, this is particularly true for many, many people of color. Because of my education, I’ve been able to provide not only the basic necessities for my family, but many things to make their lives easier and more comfortable. I am grateful for that and yet know I need to keep working, at least for now, to try and make education and other basic life necessities more available to more people. It is part of my purpose and my calling at this time in my life, and so I will continue the work as best I can without complaint.

Sometimes it’s hard to find the kernel of gratitude hiding under the shell, but I’m grateful that most days when I look for it, I find it. These are indeed times “that try men’s souls,” and yet they also offer opportunities for people of good will, faith, and good sense to come together to work collectively to bring about needed change.  I am looking forward to the day when I can hand the baton off to someone who can continue the work, taking it farther and accomplishing more. May it be soon.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 735

Posted on July 18, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am definitely spinning the wheel and sharing some of my previously written wise insights on gratitude. It has been a long week and I’ve been tired since Monday. I have distracted myself this evening and not gotten to the wheel spinning until now, and as it the case with most kinds of wheel spinning, it took me a while to make progress. I finally landed on a blog I felt like sharing. Tonight enjoy excerpts from Day 130, written in November of 2011.

I am grateful to have enjoyed the company of canine friends throughout various times in my life. I grew up with Great Danes, first Thor, a fawn colored Dane whom I knew as a toddler, then Pasha–black with a white splash on his chest, who was my best friend from age 10 to 18. There were two other dogs that my parents had during my college years: Shalimar, a beautiful but crazy Harlequin Dane and Breon, an enormous gray Irish Wolfhound. Shalimar went crazy and snapped at my mom. She gave him away, saying that she would not tolerate having a dog that frightened her. As it turns out, Shalimar turned on his next owners and was ultimately put to sleep. Breon found his way back to the breeder after a couple of years with my parents–he’d gotten to be too much to take care of. He went on to live a good life.

I went through much of my adult life without a dog. Being in graduate school, getting married, having kids all sort of interfered with my having another canine friend in my life. That changed when an abandoned pup found its way to friends of ours. I had been thinking about getting a dog for the kids and this one sort of showed up. At the time I had been thinking smaller than a pit bull mixed-breed with big feet (usually an indication that a big dog is going to grow into them) but somehow when this five-month old pup fell into our laps it seemed like it was meant to be. Over the course of months and years there were times when I seriously wanted to kill Shiloh, but there were many more times when he showed himself to be a gentle, sweet fellow. When I was sad, he could hear (or perhaps sense) me crying from down the hall through two rooms and run to where I was, laying his head on my lap.

When I moved to California, Shiloh moved too, gamely riding for four days in the back of the SUV as we drove the 2500+ miles across the country from Michigan. He moved into a household that already had two dogs and into a smaller space with much less yard. But he was a game old man, taking it in stride. California wasn’t kind to Shiloh, however. Things in the environment here inflamed his skin allergies much more seriously than he experienced in Michigan. Ultimately his health suffered and three years after we’d moved here, we discovered that he had an inoperable tumor and had to be put to sleep. It was an incredibly painful and difficult experience for me and the kids, especially Michal. For her, Shiloh represented the last piece of home she had in California. Jared had flown in from St. Louis to bid goodbye to his old friend. We put Shiloh to sleep on Valentine’s day 2008.

Two months later, Michal was ready for another dog. I was pretty determined we would get a rescue dog so after searching through various websites, we found out about Tony LaRussa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (http://www.arf.net/). After some searching and discussion, we adopted a dog whom Michal renamed Honor. When we got her, Honor has just had whelped puppies and been spayed all in about 24 hours. Needless to say she was a bit undone with it all, but settled in over time. Honor is a sweet, if a bit neurotic little dog. We know almost nothing about her life prior to finding herself in a shelter, but at various times her behavior indicates that life was very hard for her. Lucky for her and for us we found ourselves together.

I am grateful to have been a friend and companion to various canines over the years. They have taught me a variety of lessons,most notably about forgiveness,unconditional love,and being in the present moment. They have been family, friends, comforters, entertainers. I don’t know if I’ll continue to have canine companions in the years ahead. I suspect that I might do so for the companionship and friendship they offer. In the meantime, I’ll continue to value and appreciate the “pup”I have, even when she drives me nuts!

Honor Rides Shotgun Across Ohio-October 2012


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Lessons in Gratitude Day 734

Posted on July 17, 2013 by mtchamblee

This has been quite a week and it is only Wednesday. Tonight is going to be one of simple gratitude and then perhaps a recycled reflection from an earlier post.

I am grateful for and humbled by the folks who faithfully read this blog–some have read daily since the beginning, missing only a day here or there before making it up. Others started somewhere in the middle, and still others have only recently started reading it. I am grateful to all of you because no matter when you joined me on this journey, you’ve been present, offering comments, “liking” it on Facebook, and periodically sharing it with others. I find myself continually surprised by the various posts that people find helpful; some I have written on the fly, one some occasions I write when I am totally exhausted and barely coherent, and still others I can say I had a clear head and wrote an expressive, organized, meaningful piece. The funny thing is people have “liked” and commented on the good, the not so good, and the really not so good and have found meaning and taken away insights. No matter how I might have perceived them as being poorly written, readers found them valuable, and that’s really what this is all about.

So earlier this week when I wrote a heartfelt post about believing in the basic goodness of people, some of my faithful readers really liked it. And they shared it on their walls and other people read it. More people have read that one than they’ve read any previous post for a long time. I’m not entirely sure why it resonated with people so much, but it did and I’m so glad about that. I have been on a wild ride lately; the mechanical bull is functioning well, tossing me back and forth, up and down, and my landings haven’t been particularly graceful. Somehow, though, with all that’s been going on in the country, people seem to have resonated with a message of hope and determination from a weary warrior. I am so grateful that these words and sentiments on themes associated with gratitude connect with people and if that helps you think more about how you express gratitude in your life, that is absolutely fabulous. That is in fact why I keep writing even when I’m a bit weary. So I ask your pardon for those occasions when I spin the random number generator wheel and offer a “recycled” post. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep the conversation going until I have the energy to write an original post.

The other thing I am grateful for this evening is for my four-legged friend who is still recovering from being jumped and injured by another (bigger) dog. Today was her last trip to the vet to have the stitches removed from her ear, a piece of which had been torn off in the attack. She still has to wear the “cone of shame” for a few more days to keep her from scratching it and potentially  aggravating the injury, but she’s at last been liberated from the irritating head wrap that had trapped both ears to keep her from flapping them and injuring herself. It was a small shock when I got my first look at it and realized that a chunk of her ear is gone, but I remain grateful that she wasn’t more seriously injured and continues to heal. As I teased when it first happened, she’ll have a great story to tell all the other dogs at the dog park (“You think I look bad, you should see the other guy…”) I owe a debt of gratitude to my brother-in-law who carted her back and forth to the vet over the past two weeks and incurred the costs of her treatment. I would not have been able to do it, though I imagine I’d have found a way somehow.

I am grateful for many things this day: faithful readers, recovering canines, wonderful family. What are you grateful for this day?

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 733

Posted on July 16, 2013 by mtchamblee

This morning I fully intended to go on strike: I had had enough and was going to stop out of my life. All of it. Well, most of it. A funny thing happened on the way to the strike: I didn’t. I’m not sure how it happened. I was pretty determined that I was not going to engage with the world in any meaningful way today and for the foreseeable future. And then suddenly there I was engaging with the world. I am tired, I reasoned with myself, I should be able to take a break. I’m going to walk away from everything. And then, I didn’t. There’s no other way to explain it. I got up, made my bed, engaged in all my usual morning ablutions, took care of the dog, got into my car and headed onto the Beltway toward work. When I got to work, I was pretty determined that I was not going to interact with anyone there in any meaningful way, though I had to lead a meeting and interact with staff in any number of ways that would make being on strike difficult. In the end I conducted the meeting, though I ranted and went off topic a few times. Afterward I returned to my office somewhat bemused by how I hadn’t been on strike and had in fact led the meeting in spite of my intentions.

A few minutes later, the answer came to me. I was cleaning up my computer desktop at work and ran across a jpg file titled, “Jared and Friends.” When I opened it I saw a sweet picture of my son smiling into the camera. “Ah,” I sighed and all the air went out of my strike. I remembered why I do what I do. Why have I spent over half of my life working to create safe spaces for young people of color to thrive and excel in environments unwelcoming or even hostile to them? The environments in which I’ve worked were often unwelcoming and hostile to me, especially doing the work I was doing. I realize now that I was often stretching myself over them, sheltering and protecting them as best I could from the forces coming against them. Even as the blows rained down on me from all sides, they were, inasmuch as was possible, unharmed. I, however, was bruised and bloodied–not physically of course, but emotionally, psychically. Then I look at the picture of my son looking back at me from my computer screen and I think about how I have stretched myself over him and my daughter throughout their lives. And now that they are living on their own and outside of my immediate protection, all I can do is cover them with my prayers and love. And I can stretch myself over other people’s children as best I can, knowing that as I shelter them, some other force is sheltering my children.

Obviously I cannot shelter and protect everyone: one could suggest that in reality I can’t really shelter and protect anyone–at least not in a physical sense. Still I do my best to continue providing places of support for young people in particular, but anyone I can. I often don’t see with my natural eyes the real flesh and blood beneficiaries of the work I do: I work on programs and policies and deal with budgets and training and personnel matters. Sometimes others get to do the “fun stuff” of interacting with the students or are more out front benefiting from or receiving acknowledgment for the results that my work has produced. My ego rears up and I get bent out of shape about all the hard work I do behind the scenes. But then I remember what (and who) I am doing this all for and I let it go. Because in the end it’s about them, it’s not about me.

I was earnest in my attempt to go on strike this morning, but I find that I am grateful to have once again failed. Perhaps I need to take up a different kind of quest; I’m clearly not good at going on strike or quitting this work. I’ll either need to get a new attitude or a new metaphor. Until then, I’ll take time outs when I really need a break from the demands of the work, the emotional overload or exhaustion that sometimes overcomes me. I’ll breathe in gratitude and move forward as best I can.

Posted in Gratitude, Life Purpose, Overcoming Challenges, Serving Others | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 732

Posted on July 15, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight is a good night to spin the RNG wheel and let my previous words speak for me. It is only Monday and I am already ready for the weekend. I am going on strike today (again) and unlike the past few days when I’ve been able to muscle my way through the drama and trauma of recent events, tonight I can’t manage it enough to write. I am weary, not simply tired. I am feeling the need for combat pay, for a sabbatical, for a month off with pay. As none of these things are likely to happen any time soon, I will simply sign off acknowledging, as I have a number of times in the past 730+ days that “Mama said there’ll be days like this,” and “Tomorrow is another day.”

I am grateful for a few things this evening:

  • going to sleep with a full belly–no fear of not having enough food;
  • a cool house–fortunate to have air conditioning that keeps my house cool in the midst of this 90 to 95 degree weather over the next few days (and warm on those days when it’s 10 degrees);
  • a computer that allows me to write and send my thoughts around the world in an instant;
  • reliable transportation to a job that pays me enough to live relatively comfortably;
  • and grateful to have several hundred previously posted blogs from which I can share on evenings like this one when I don’t have the mental and emotional energy to post positive, coherent words.

So without further complaint or ado, I offer this post on family (a favorite theme of mine) that I wrote in September of 2011 (Day 67).

Today I spent a lovely day hanging out with my sister and her husband and my kids, including my “adopted son” (my daughter’s roommate). I drove about 150 miles or more today, so I’m a bit tired, but it is a good tired. I picked them up in San Francisco, we ate brunch in Berkeley, then drove up to Sonoma State to see Michal. We picked her up along with my “son” Alex and headed off to Bodega Bay (a coastal town north of Sonoma State where Alfred Hitchcock filmed “The Birds.”)  We probably spent more time in the car than out, but I enjoyed the time talking and listening and reconnecting with my sister and brother-in-law. Michal got to hear some funny childhood stories about me and her Aunt, and we got to laugh at ourselves at yet another rehashing of family tales that always seem to be embellished in the retelling.

I’ve written in earlier blogs about how grateful I am for my family. Like most families, my siblings and I each have our foibles, personality quirks, and idiosyncrasies; and there are times when one doesn’t get along particularly well with another or we hurt each others feelings, etc. as is common with siblings in particular. But when I think back over the years when one of us has struggled or had medical crises or needed support in one form or another, one, some, or all of us have responded. In times past I’ve been able to be on the giving side, offering assistance in whatever ways I could. Over the past few months I’ve been more in receiving mode as I navigate through my current difficulties. There’s likely some blessing to be found in both giving and receiving, though I must confess that I’d rather be in a situation in which I am able to give assistance rather than require it.

I hope to get a chance to see many of my siblings during the Christmas holidays–God, airfares for three, and weather permitting. Over the past few years I’ve become somewhat a chronicler of family history–pulling together old photographs and doing some videotaping. My plan is to find some time to record some family stories–like the ones we laughed about this afternoon,and other more poignant tales that are the legacy we have to pass along to my nieces,nephews and my own children.

I know that for many people ,their families of origin are not their families of choice. I am fortunate to have family members that I love and respect and enjoy spending time with. I count my siblings among my close friends. Harper Lee (“To Kill a Mockingbird”) said, “You can choose your friends but you sho’can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ‘em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.” Well I didn’t have any choice about who my kin are, but I figure that for the most part, I lucked out. And for that, and for each of them, I am most grateful.

Posted in Family, Gratitude, Simple Blessings/Gratitude | Leave a comment