Finding Gratitude in a Season of Dismay

The other day I went up to my office to look for a journal to use on an upcoming trip. I am a collector of journals but am particular about how they look & more importantly how they feel. If the pages do not lay flat, feel just so, or the lines are not adequately spaced for my sprawling cursive, they end up on a shelf in my study. They remain in a neat stack until I find another use for them.

It was there that I found a turquoise blue journal that seemed to be a likely candidate for a travel log. When I opened it I realized I used it for a bit as a gratitude journal. Inside there were a few pages of dutiful entries of three or five things I was grateful for each day. I started writing in a gratitude journal after reading Sarah Bon Breathnach’s book Simple Abundance back in the mid 90’s. Initially, I was a faithful devotee, but eventually the novelty wore off or maybe I just wasn’t as grateful? At least not grateful enough to record my moments of grace. Yet, this journal was written only six years ago. I started it in March 2015 & abruptly stopped in June of that same year. I have no clue as to why I started recording my moments of gratitude nor why I stopped. However, after reading the scattered entries, i remembered that it was a happy time in my life.

I was newly retired, working part time & sharing my library position with the perfect partner. Kelly brought new ideas and an enthusiasm to our library program that energized me as well. I was often just grateful for her but also her kindness, affable nature, and the new ideas she brought to our library. Yet, there were other colleagues I mentioned too…working with my friend Betsy on Student Council, our clerk Joyce, the office staff, and dear colleagues that still joined me for lunch each working day.

I think what filled my heart with gratitude that year was a new found balance in my life. Working part time gave me the freedom to take care of our youngest grandson so that my daughter-in-law could put in another day at work. Oh how I savored that time with baby boy, Beau. Times that I never got with our first four grandchildren because of work.

As I scanned the entries looking for clues, I was taken with the simple things I noted…a kind store clerk, a chat with a neighbor, a salad supper, or simply the name of someone dear to me. Each evening I threaded through my memories and noted the moments or people who enriched my day in some way. I wonder now why I stopped just three months later? Was I too busy? Undisciplined? No longer interested or perhaps a combination of all three? Somehow the journal ended up in a moving box a few years later and then was carefully stowed away in my new office all but forgotten.

As I write this, I wonder now if this journal isn’t a nudge from my 64 year year old self. Not only is it a reminder of a happier time, but perhaps a gentle push to find gratitude again. Something I find difficult to conjure on these heavy, discordant days. Yet, maybe like a garden my “gratitude” needs to be tended and grown. Feeding it with attention and noticing, but also weeding out my anger, frustration, and despair. Weeds that I find plentiful these days in the news, on social media, at feisty school board meetings, and on the road as I drive.

In the book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes of an “Allegiance to Gratitude.” The children of the Onondaga Nation begin and end their school week with a recitation of the “Thanksgiving Address.” The Address is not a Pledge of Allegiance that many children still say before the start of each school day. The Thanksgiving Address, recited in their ancient language, actually means, “Words that come before all else.” Each stanza or verse offers thanks for the natural world and our connection to…”Mother Earth,” the waters, fish, plant life, medicine herbs, mammals, birds, the weather and winds, the sun, “Grandmother Moon”, enlightened teachers, and the Great Creator.

I was so taken with this beautiful ritual of gratitude that I will close with the last stanza…

“We have arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it is not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way. And now our minds are one.”

The above is a charge I take seriously. I must continue to grow and harvest my own gratitude, Maybe you will, too? Perhaps then our minds will be one.