day twenty-two: 27 days of gratitude

Thanks giving.
I mistakenly thought "Thanksgiving" would provide a no-brainer gratitude post during this 27 day challenge I set for myself. Not the case. I spent the better part of the day heaving sadness from a bottomless pit of longing (dare I say self pity)…for family, to be wanted or to simply belong. Many holidays have come and gone without a warm family welcome or a feast and they all came rushing back to me today, each competing for a seat at my table and vying for attention, each one bullying out the good memories.
I cried often.
And still I found myself at a beautiful gratitude celebration in Mile Hi sanctuary from 10-11, then spent the day surrounded by dear people who invited me to various homes and family gatherings. I was surprised by the heart open welcome I received at each stop. I was humbled by the generous outpouring of abundance and food in celebration: men watching football, brothers sounding off comic parodies with the practiced familiarity particular to siblings, children playing games, many cooking and all joined together in celebration. It was a good reminder that sadness and gratitude can exist hand in hand, and loneliness can vacillate toward togetherness and back again.
Thank you to all the warm hearts and beautiful people who welcomed me in on this Thanksgiving day. And thank you to the extended paternal families who made this day special and memorable for each of my boys. I am grateful!

Comments

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the ...

angelbirdflies

Search This Blog