Author: ferylfiles

HEAD’S UP. THIS ONE ISN’T NICE.

Good grief. I’m supposed to write about how I’m thankful for emotions when pretty much they’ve been an agonizing assault for over a year? Just when I can almost articulate one, I’m smacked with six others all at once. There’s not time to process or even fully feel them all. They come in a giant wave like a tsunami or many little ones like a bout of nausea.

Right now, I’m thankful for anger. Because at least I can acknowledge that’s what I’m feeling and it’s helping me stay a little warmer on this bone-chilling day. I’m thankful that I have emotions because that’s a good indicator I’m not a sociopath; I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. And not only do I get to feel all of my emotions, I probably feel half of yours, and his, and hers, and theirs.

Fear not reader, I’m not looking to eliminate emotions, or numb them into oblivion. Today, I’m frankly not really equipped to post how joyously grateful I am to have them. Because sometimes, I AM NOT. They’re too big. They’re too heavy. They’re too messy. And I’d kind of like a break.

But that’s not life or reality. So I get to put on my big girl pants and feel the feels and be thankful I have the chance because some don’t get to. Shit.

My mom always seemed to love the naughty kids best. I think it’s because she saw it as their asking for love in unlovable ways. From her I learned that it’s by loving that something or someone becomes lovable. Love gentles, sands off rough edges, and rounds out flat sides. Love is the wonder-spackle of the soul.

Love changes people. It makes broken people whole again. It heals. It’s the magic sauce. The real deal.

I am thankful for that love–the love that gentles and heals, the love that takes broken parts and makes them whole. I am the recipient of that kind of love. Anything about me that is good is because I was loved first. And the ripple effect of that is that I can and do love, too.

Kindness is:

1. making sure my kiddo had the gas money she needed to get to and from and around Seattle last fall.
2. making sure I had help with cat care when I had to be in Seattle.
3. words of encouragement.
4. hard truths told with love to prepare for what was ahead.
5. Sunshine smoothies, Papa Murphy pizzas, and Graze gift certificates to afford me a little respite and more time.
6. buying jewelry and art when it helped make things a little easier for our family.
7. grocery deliveries and front porch care packages.
8. meals.
9. cards and letters.
10. scrubbing the stove top and dusting when I couldn’t.
11. helping decorate for Christmas even if it was just a little and it was really, really hard.
12. missing a milestone birthday so your husband could cook meals for three weeks for one of his best friends at a really vulnerable time.
13. driving in an electric vehicle during really windy, cold weather to make it in time for Christmas and spending the whole day on a gauntlet/quest, then making delicious food and watching movies, bringing light and joy.
14. showing up and showing and showing up.
15. hugs.
16. words and music of encouragement.
17. making the best cottage pie so that a little family could have their trip to Ireland after all.
18. providing a space to remember.
19. making a space to forget.
20. making the time, making the trip.
21. being a safe space to laugh and cry and yell.
22. cleaning my car and making sure my oil was changed.
23. watching stand-up comedy with me to make sure I laugh.
24. sitting with me in silence or listening to me talk at length.
25. being a safe harbor.
26. holding me to account.
27. encouraging me.
28. washing my dishes, sweeping my porch, mowing my lawn.
29. walking with me in my joy and sorrow.
30. extending grace, especially when I’m at my lowest.

For all of these and more than I can write or speak out loud, I am so grateul for kindness, for without it, I would not be able to function, let alone be here. Thank you.

I’m not going to come at you with une explication de texte of a Keats poem. Beauty for me is in the surprising places, in the weird, the unexpected, and it’s always best when shared.

I remember the first time Bryan and I went to Paris I got to watch his face as he turned the corner in Notre Dame and looked up at the rose windows. That first look. The way his breath caught. And we got to relive it all over again when Mary joined us. Some of my very best memories–sharing beauty with my beloveds.

Today, I got to join friends, helping with one stage of a landscaping project. In order to get rid of grass to create a space for more plantings and stepping stones, they put down compost, created a red brick border, and then we put down wet newspaper, layering it like shingles. I caught a photo of this stage. It looked to me for all the world like a modern art installation or a tile mosaic work. This snapshot in time is beautiful because it represents time with friends, potential of the future, and the strangeness of the color and texture out of a perceived context.

For me, beauty is never perfection, it’s a captivating, delightful surprise that makes me feel better than before I experienced it. That’s the kind of beauty for which I’m most thankful.

Today is November 11th–Veterans Day, Armistice Day. This is the anniversary of the end of World War I. Memories are a tricky thing. I am both thankful for them (which this gratitude list is steering me toward) and terrified, horrified, and saddened by them. That is the nature of maturing, I guess, being able to see both, the nuance, the layers. I wish it were simple. Happy. Sad. Yes. No. Off. On. Like switches. But no. It’s all of it all at once all the time.

I’d like to share a poem from the British poet, Siegfried Sassoon, whose work captured the zeitgeist of the soldiers’ experiences and the postwar sentiment in many ways. Here he recalls who and how he was prior to the experience of war and who he became afterward.

Memory

When I was young my heart and head were light,
And I was gay and feckless as a colt
Out in the fields, with morning in the may,
Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom.
O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free
And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time
Across the carolling meadows into June.

But now my heart is heavy-laden. I sit
Burning my dreams away beside the fire:
For death has made me wise and bitter and strong;
And I am rich in all that I have lost.
O starshine on the fields of long-ago,
Bring me the darkness and the nightingale;
Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home,
And silence; and the faces of my friends.

~Siegfried Sassoon

Yes, I am thankful for memories. I treasure them. I remember the before time and celebrate, and I know who I am now and I mourn in equal measure. It just is.