42 Days of Gratitude

So 42 days ago was my 42nd birthday, and that morning I was at the gym on the elliptical watching Last Holiday with Queen Latifah in closed-captions on the little shaky TV screen, and thinking that there is a hell of a lot of pressure to have an epiphany on your birthday. You’re older, so you’re supposed to be wiser, and you wait for that lightbulb to go off, some new way of making sense of the world. So there I am, feeling the heat (literally too) of that and trying to figure out what to take with me for this year, and I’m listening to music and sweating and then I start really getting into this movie. It is a scientific fact that mediocre movies are often brilliant in closed captions, and there I am, reading the dialogue, and in the movie—in case you didn’t see it—Queen plays this store clerk who is misdiagnosed as having some fatal brain tumor, so she decides to spend her life savings going on to this extravagant hotel in the Alps or something, where a bunch of wealthy people who aren’t very happy think she’s like their emotional guru and it’s all very carpe diem and recognizing what’s truly important in life. And maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a sap, or because it was my birthday, or because I was sweating my ass off on the elliptical and pumped up with endorphins, or because I was thinking about my friends from work who’d been celebrating with me the night before and the ones I’d see that night for Indian food (Yum!), but I started thinking about how much I have to be grateful for, and how it sorta sucks that I don’t think about those things enough, how it’s easy to see what’s missing instead of all the things that are right in front of you, and how maybe I’d better work harder at that since how often can you count on the Queen Latifah (who rocks, btw)/ birthday love/elliptical high trifecta to get you to see it? My friend Peri—who is a wise, wise woman—says you should celebrate each birthday for as many days as you are old. This was a pretty challenging undertaking this year, with things at work so wonky, but this past 42 days have been dedicated to journaling on those things I am grateful for. And there are loads, but here are the categories that really stood out, the things that kept coming up over and over again. My friends. Yeah, you know who you are. We have those bad jokes that only we get. My best wingmen, you listeners, you dreamers, you Ann Landers, you Yodas; you who don’t roll your eyes at me when you probably should; who say “I don’t even notice” when I apologize for interrupting—again. Yeah, you. You’ve been there through thick and thin, and you make me laugh and think and make me want to be a better person. And among the many great things aging gives you is time to really pick the cream of the crop for your crew. Love you guys. My parents. Yes, we certainly have our challenges, but you have both contributed to my best parts. Mom, you taught me to be a “tough Tennessee Broad” even though I only visited the place once. You taught me how to love and forgive, and how to see from a different point of view than my own. You taught me faith and to believe in the unseen, and you opened the world of books and reading and stories. You gave me a voice and a mind of my own, and the love of learning that keeps me both a avid student and a caring teacher. Dad, when things get tough I hear you in my head saying “But do you like what you’re doing?” You gave me an artist’s eye and a sense of humor. You gave me a camera and a bicycle and maybe that’s all a girl really needs. You taught me to see like an artist. My body. I am a tall girl, and I am strong. My legs have been through breaks, tears, sprains and an attempted bunion and they keep on keepin’ on, even in painful but awesome looking high-heeled boots. My shoulders are broad and can bear a lot. My hands talk and are good investigators. My head is blessed with a ridiculous imagination and childlike curiosity which can get me into trouble and I pray I never lose a neuron of that which still makes me want to pop bubblewrap, get giddy at love, and ride shopping carts. I can run and jump and bike and swim. I can laugh loudly, and close my eyes and listen and sleep. I have a heart that sometimes beats over 170 when I am really jamming a workout, and it is healthy and it is big enough to love a whole lot, which is good ‘cause there is a lot to love out there. Teachers. Oh and they go back a long way. Mr. Hein in high school taught me “’Yo Momma!’...is an interjection” and gave a push as a writer. Mr. Haugen, my favorite curmudgeonly jewelry teacher who let me work in the studio all through lunch even though I have no idea why he’d give a teenager keys to an unsupervised room full of gas torches. So many others from so many disciplines. You are mentors and colleagues. You teach because you have passion for something and it bursts at your seams. You ask me questions, you make me find my own answers. You show me how it’s done. Students. I’m still one of you. I’m still hungry. You make me want to cry sometimes, sitting in a writing class while I fade away and you all rise and rise, your brains humming strange beautiful frequencies. My Pilates clients who tell me how much more aware they are of their bodies, who talk excitedly of the positive changes they’ve noticed. You inspire me. You push me. You give me value. Outside. Sure, inside is nice and comfortable, but a girl doesn’t always need comfortable. Icy fresh air turning fingers to cement, frosting over the eyeballs. Sweat pouring into the small of my back biking home in 90 degree plus heat. The crunch of snow, or dead leaves, under feet, under tires. Rain pattering on my hat, my hands, my skin. Sun warming me in slanting shafts while I lie on the grass on Logan Boulevard on a lazy Sunday afternoon in summer. Lake Michigan, angry and grey. Lake Michigan, flat like a blue mirror at the corner of the Oak Street beach bike path. Lily of the Valley poking up like survivors between crowded city apartments. A snowflake close up, mystical, microscopic symmetry stuck to the black wool of my lapel as I walk through downtown Chicago near Christmas. Perfection can be so tiny and large all at once. What’s one thing you are grateful for today? It pays to look up, to look around, and notice even one thing. Life is rich!