mirror ball 42: more gratitude

Gratitude:

Whitney:
I am grateful for love without fear.

Brian:

I have gratitude almost every morning when I end my qi gong practice. Sometimes I am grateful for something as simple as the few slight gusts of wind that cool me while I sweat, or the smell of whatever perfume comes from the plants or flowers if I am outdoors. Or I could be grateful for a more emotionally significant topic like love, compassion and understanding of people around me. Lately, though I've been compelled to thank myself for having the courage to look inward, with awareness, in order to identify and break the old patterns of unconsciousness that limit my interactions with others and hold me back from experiencing my own full expression in the world. After making gratitude a conscious and regular practice for a few years I've noticed how seldom I start the day with a crappy attitude and how much more likely I am to be engaged and interested in others, in the world and myself. I feel more alive! 

Chris H:

my body.... my family.  : )

Richard:
i am grateful for...

sky.

earth.

ocean.

sane parents.

honest friends.

generous teachers.

nepal.

montana.

maine.

wagner.

mahler.

glass.

salt.

ginger.

wine.

red.

yellow.

purple.

sex.

dance.

silence.

fear.

kindness.

compassion. 

Eve:

My daughter loves school. Loves academics, takes pride in her facility with numbers, memorization, words. She was over the moon to be starting middle school, couldn't wait to rise to the increased academic rigor. Craved it.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the school we chose was not a good fit. A good school... a marvelous one in fact, where the kids are all positive and engaged and accepting of each others differences. Just so wrong for our girl who is hungry for the facts and wants to go fast. The right atmosphere for a kid who is a reluctant student, one who needs to have their curiosity ignited. Not our girl.  

And so the process of  trying to get her transferred to a more appropriate place began. Enter the petition and appeal process in the portland public school system.

I was ready for the worst... ready to face jaded burned out people who were so stretched beyond their limit that I would find naught but frustration. I worried I would have to call in Geraldo Rivera before I would get anyone to listen to me. I shifted into mama bear mode and tapped into my pushy new yorker roots and... Had one wonderful interaction after another.

Sure, it was gut wrenching. There were crying jags. Sure, I wrote many well executed and persuasive letters... but they did not fall on deaf ears. Every single person at pps was sympathetic and welcoming and clearly doing their absolute best to help find a better placement for my child. With all the cuts, all the crowding, all the crises all the time, these people were all, without exception, truly trying to figure out a way. Her teacher from last year, her new teacher at the good but ill fitting school, the woman in the transfer office, the principals at other schools, tag coordinators, regional administrators, receptionists. I felt so supported and so heard.

Every school we hoped to get our daughter into was full to the gills, but somehow, room was made, Somehow these people worked together and found a way. I am filled with respect and profound gratitude.

Another take on the same situation... I am grateful that I was educated in the virtues and strategies of advocacy. Grateful that my daughter is now learning the value of advocacy too. Hopeful that she will use those skills for others as well as for herself. 

Garris:

I've spent more than a few moments contemplating this idea of "gratitude"....I think the last time you sent out this inspiration, I actually took a pass. It's not that I couldn't think of plenty to feel gratitude for....a loving family....plenty of laughter in my life....relatively good health....a dog that lives to see me come through the door...etc. It was more, for me, about actually feeling that gratitude. It all sounded so trite and somehow not "enough". I, like so many others, am struggling at this point in my life. I have no idea where I am headed and just how I am supposed to get to this "somewhere" that I can't even begin to see a path for. So, in an effort to keep myself from sliding too far down into a hopeless spiral of "what am I going to do"s... I took my  dog for a walk....on this crisp and clear September day and began again to try and really feel gratitude. I took in the sun....the cool clear air....the difference in the sunlight that tells me the season is indeed changing. I smelled the smells and listened to the sounds and occasionally tugged on Puck's leash to remind myself that he was there. I found much to be grateful for....but I still didn't feel all that much better. When I got back to my fucking cute little house (a place in which I am SO grateful to be living) and I cautiously looked in the mail box (I say cautiously because that is the way I approach my mail box these days) and was relieved to pull out mostly political fliers,grocery store specials, and a deal from Bank of America on how to borrow more money  from them to save money (huh?) but thankfully,  nothing that was marked with "WE'VE PUT UP WITH YOUR LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY LONG ENOUGH....IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO GO" on the envelope. But I also pulled out a letter from my soul sibling Dan. A LETTER mind you....not a card....but an honest to God beautiful letter. The kind that he writes so well and that I never seem to be able to. And I sat on my stoop....in the beautiful sunlight and cool breeze, with my dog impatiently waiting to go into my fucking cute little house (sorry, but it really is fucking cute...there's just no other way to describe it)....and I read the words that Dan had written a few days before.  The words that spoke directly to how I felt on my walk. He wrote and expressed all of my own fears and joys and he wrote of striving  to be present in each and every moment between the joy and fear. I swear he wrote the words that had just come out of my brain only moments before and I knew I was not alone.  And it was then that I felt it. I actually FELT it. Gratitude.

Steve:
I am grateful for
-melted cheese in or on just about any food item, including a humble tortilla
-our vivid and bounteous crop of dahlias
-Chris Whitley's CD "Living With the Law", which I discovered twenty years after the fact, and which is in very heavy--nearly obsessive-- rotation
-my dear companion John
-very diverse, very creative, very sweet friends
-homemade popsicles all summer 

Lori:
I have a temporary teen-age daughter for the year in the form of a beautiful, German exchange student.  Bring on teenage-hood!  I have a 7 year old son, who gratefully, is loving her company as much as I am.  Integrating a complete stranger into my home, and a teenage one at that, is not something I would normally do, but my husband and I went for it, and we hit the jackpot.  I took her to the mall last weekend and we bought jeans and we giggled about silly things.  I can be her "mother" but it's not the same as being her mom, so it's great.  I even broached the topics of drugs, alcohol, and birth-control - all in her first 2 weeks!  She was great about it.  She turned sweet 16 yesterday.  My gratitude is running high.

Stephanie:

I am grateful for that beautiful boy Kellan for choosing Scott and I as his Mommy and Daddy. He is a joy!