All the things that are working

(another way of saying “gratitude”)*

May 2020

My roommate is moving out. Life is being turned upside down– and not just in my apartment. Things are changing, being moved around, thrown out. Corners are being dusted and wiped down.

For this moment I’m not scared to be in the quiet. In the space that’s being cleared. It’s here, in the empty, that the ghosts make themselves me known. To lie back and sink deep into their shadow, the shadow that is me; a part of me. We all have our shadows. The way my ghosts, my wounds, express themselves. Something shifted in me today and I want to express my gratitude for that. Even if it’s “just” here, even if no one ever reads it but me.

I would love one day for this page to be a place where all kinds of people can leave bits of their gratitude behind. Not only because it’s a good daily practice (and one that I don’t do right now but have in the past) but because I need a place to come and remind myself of all the things that are working.

So I’m making a list and I’m going to add to it each day (I can commit to 7 days).

1. Being part of this current yoga teacher training I’m doing and participating fully. This includes sharing my vulnerability (even though it scares the shit out of me– especially because it’s virtual for some reason).
2. I’m here again. I’ve been absent the last three or four days. I did my first zoom meeting with three lovely women tonight. We usually share a group therapy date Wednesday nights. My friendship with these unbelievably strong and courageous women lightens the heaviness in my heart this evening.
3. I have definitely not been here for seven consecutive days. But instead of deleting the above goal, and perhaps changing it so I appear less imperfect, I am going to practice being satisfied with “good enough”. It makes me think of that saying: “perfect is the enemy of done.”
4. I repotted my tomato, calendula, and tulsi seedlings tonight. Oh, how I love digging into the rich, cool earth. Thank you tiny seeds and new green for always finding a way to grow (no matter how many mistakes I make in trying to nurture you).

5.  I’m picking this up again in February 2023. It bothers me to no end that I cannot find a way to align these two lists. I am working with my irritation. I am taking it as practice for things not being just the way I want them to be. And I am annoyed by all of this.

1. I figured out how to do it (see above entry). I’m going to leave it all as is. This will be a reminder to myself that things are always in the making, and that the becoming (ie the mess) is what I most long to share with others. That is where I am right now, in another place of becoming. My pieces are scattered and the wind of grief keeps them in motion, like dust motes in a beam of sun. There is chaos here. And also hope. I am learning to exchange control, the desire to shape this energy, for allowance, the surrender and permission for events to shape themselves. This isn’t a passive process. But it does require letting go.

 

*An addendum of sorts: Since originally writing this piece I have experienced some bristling, or resistance, around the word “gratitude”. I think it comes from decades in recovery, the kind of 12-step rooms that seek to focus on “gratitude practice” as a way to keep the ghosts at bay. Or to deny their very existence, instead labelling their habitual haunts as getting stuck in self-will or self-pity. I no longer keep a list of things I’m grateful for. For me this is an act of rebellion. It has nothing to do with rejecting the good things, and everything to do with giving space for the things that bring me discomfort. For the experiences that brought such pain as a child, the events I have been trying for decades to will away with such activities as keeping gratitude lists. Instead, I think I will rename this section, “things that are working”. Because there is always something I can find that is working in my life, even if it’s in a way that brings me discomfort. It’s possible there is another addendum in here somewhere.