As soon as I cancelled all of my appointments today, I began to love the snow. Before that, it was menacing, as it had been transforming itself to roadway ice in places I was committed to crossing. I wondered at the incompleteness of our own inventions: creating transportation that only works when the weather is right, and then building our lives around it. What kind of wisdom is that? The car itself, marvel that it is, remains one of the most ill-advised ideas our species has had. A fully-packed day planner with a life scheduled down to the minute is right alongside it, as a clever idea that does huge accidental harm.
Little on the day planner is actually as vital as it seems, and once I let go of my compulsive need to follow through meticulously on every plan, I began to be grateful. I could stay home in the snow, write, and go inward as a form of early Thanksgiving. I’m deeply grateful to be living this far in the woods; happy to have begun to land on the other side of a steep canyon of life changes.
In the process, I’ve become newly grateful. Of course I’m grateful for a beautiful home, for the family within and around it, for love, for friends, for the green grace of the earth itself. The central gratitude list (upon which the previous sentence only touches) stays steady over time, as often as I remind myself to refresh it. With a huge set of life shifts accomplished in the recent past, though, I thought to myself as I walked, what am I newly grateful for? With new vistas come new visions, and I must have a few. I’ve found these inside, as a beginning:
I’m grateful for risk. The need to take risks challenges me inside, to make bold moves from a basis of well-considered faith. It makes me stop to consider what’s vital, and what I’m willing to let go of in order to stay true to that vitality.
I’m grateful for mystery. You never really want to know how the story turns out in advance. That would vaporize the intrigue of being alive. It would lead to complacency, thinking it’s pre-destined, how tomorrow’s going to turn out. And it would scare the hell out of us all, knowing the exact forms of our inevitable difficulties and demise. (I often wonder how I would’ve felt in my twenties, had I known I’d get cancer at thirty-two.)
I’m grateful for exertion. It’s been a hard year, at least in comparison to the comfort zone I had in my previous life phase. I’ve traded that ease for new challenges, and in doing so, am reminded how important hard work is in conditioning. Not just physical hard work, but also emotional, spiritual and intellectual. Exertion leads to the maintenance of good, sharp edges. It keeps you toned. It gives you the elation of the runner’s endorphin rush.
I’m grateful for inherent courage. Before cancer, I believed that courage was something only some people had. Then, when I saw first-hand that there was simply no choice about courage in illness—dying takes courage, and healing does too—I began to realize that all of us have it. It’s just a matter of tapping into it, and allowing ourselves to rely on what’s already there. That knowledge has served me well this year, launching off into new phases in a downtrodden age, with faith that I can scale the walls of tough economics, isolation and other challenges known and unknown. I didn’t need to find courage: I knew it was there when needed. It’s there for you too.
I’m grateful for opportunity’s camouflage. It’s tied in with mystery, how the subtlety of opportunity requires honing your vision. Often, the hard part is not getting doors to open, but recognizing the open doors that are already beckoning. They may not look anything like a door, or be in a direction opposite to where you thought you wanted to go. It takes the stealth of a native tracker to find opportunity in this wild civilization. And while you’re looking for it, your sharp vision allows you to see all sorts of other things for which you weren’t even looking.
It’s been one of those years: risky, mysterious, hard-working, at times courageous, and with opportunity lurking in the most unexpected places. I’ve seen many vivid, unexpected visions along the path. As I settle down into the clear gratitude of a white Thanksgiving—more snow falling even now—I’m truly grateful for gratitude itself. It was the first thought I put up on my Facebook page: “Gratitude is the shortest path to happiness.” And I’ve never yet been tempted to change it. That too, is part of gratitude’s central list—a list that spirals endlessly, beyond the bounds of these words. I’m grateful that you’re there to receive them.
