Having an “attitude of gratitude” is something I lost
track of for a long time, if I had ever had it at all. How mortifying to admit this, but it is true.
But over the last few years, slowly but surely, it has
become a regular part of my life, even at moments when most people might not
have seen much to warrant it. It started
the day that I drove the two-plus hour drive down the Northway to Albany to hear
a concert of the music I love, by an English choir. I had debated and debated about whether to
attend, thinking that this phase of my life was long since over. But having made the decision to go, I just
said over and over, as I drove through the budding trees in the Adirondack Mountains:
“I am thankful to be going to this concert.
I am thankful to the conductor. I am thankful to the choir. I am thankful that I sang this music thirty
years ago. I am thankful to all the
composers of this music. I am thankful for this tradition. I am thankful to my car, which will get me to
the concert safely.” This mantra
intensified on the trip home, with a new CD playing in the player, and me
alternatively sobbing, singing along, and saying, “I am thankful.” What an extraordinary journey has ensued!
I feel like an ancient goddess who for some reason left
many of her children by the side of the road and, waking up to the wrongness of
that, goes backward down the road and, one by one, picks them up into her
loving arms and cries with gratitude that they are still there. It’s a miracle, it’s something to be thankful
for, even when your feet are tired and your arms aren’t as strong as they used
to be, even when you can’t quite articulate who it is that you are grateful to.
You are still grateful. And once
they are all back in your arms, you face forward again and walk into the
future, finally smiling. Finally, no longer bereft.
Right now, I am helping a friend ready her home to put
on the market. My days are filled with
painting walls, cleaning windows, sorting out things for sale, recycling, the dump…all
those decisions. It feels oddly aligned
to my purpose right now. If I’m
committed to anything other than my own rebirth, it is to other women my age
who are renewing themselves. Many of us
are going through this process in some form or another. New houses. New careers
or expressions of passion. Retirement. Newly single. I am thankful for a roof
over my head as it gets colder, healthy food, and time to write, vision, and to
share notes with you on this whole process.
I am grateful to be a woman of the 20th and 21st
century, not the 17th or 12th century. As much as there has been no real roadmap for
being an independent woman, fully self-actualizing, at least I have had the
freedom to stumble down that road my own way, without having decisions made for
me by others. And today, with the news on my mind, I think of the
refugees in Europe and pray, not just for their bare bones survival, but that
as many of them as possible can move beyond survival to finding their highest
alignment to who they really are.
Somewhere on this hard road they are on, women and men, may they find a
measure of peace.
So, the paint bucket beckons…blessings this weekend,
all! And thank you.
