So Tired of Gratitude

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the sunny side, the silver lining, and the underdog. I could spout an enviable list of things that light my soul (my hammock covered with a canopy of flamingo-pink blooms from the silk floss tree & a thrum of hummingbirds partying in nectar, Alena Hennessy's book on cultivating creativity that just arrived at my door, the state of a deep sigh that falls through my being when I remember to let my inner poet speak through ink, the silence that finally wraps the house when the last child surrenders to dreams). Good things all.

But when my childhood friend (you know who you are) tagged my name in one of these incessant (and yes, pleasant, yes lovely!) threads of gratitude, I could hardly imagine jumping into the eventual cool blue that I recognize as my own spirit filled with gratefulness.

Today, I'm in a mood suited for the monastery. Give me my paints, my journal, my monk's cell with a view of the Pacific and no one jumping off of the couch pretending they are a Ninja-Lego-Spiderman doing an impression of Spongebob. I am overstimulated, overrun, overextended, overloaded and it just barely crossed over noon.
My own private paradise at the monastery

Today, I am pure moongirl, moonshine, kiss me where the moon might shine. Today I am weepy and leave me alone and you're kidding me I have to take care of these small people with loud needs and unwieldy desires ("Let's dress up like pirates and have a carnival and then you can take me to buy an American Girl Doll and we can get her ears pierced; it's only $14!"). I am grateful for the foreseeable silence of Monday morning.

Presented with making a daily list of gratitudes, I admit there are traces of my bratty, entitled, rebellious little sister self...even here, closing in on year forty...ok, maybe more than traces. A part of me wants to hang out in the dark corners of my soul to prove there may eventually be stars. A part of me wants to hang on to the murky sway of moontides pulling the grace and gratitude from the lifeforce of me.

But, okay, today, I'm grateful for the post-midnight, for the shadow-laden, for the underbelly of things. And okay, yes, for farmer's market nectarines. And yes, for my daughter's first ballet class since toddlerhood, her coltish feet learning again to chassé, her heart knocking loud on the door of her ribcage.

And you, my dear?
Are you Team Underbelly or Team Nectarine?

Comments

  1. Another amazing synthesis of the holy and mundane.

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  2. Beautiful writing! Life is so like this. You will likely cherish these moments as precious, even though they were (are) interrupted!

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