the gratitude list
this has been a tremendously hard list to write because i need a serious attitude adjustment in the area of contentedness. (side note: i despise, hate, reject, coil in utter disdain from the phrase "you need to adjust your attitude." it's such an invalidating phrase and was mistaken for good parenting in my household)
contentment, like most virtues, carries with it a juxtaposition. One on hand, i never want to embrace the contentment that brings complacency (just so you know, i am not capable of complacency - i can't even get bored without becoming suicidal. (not funny, i know) ) I mean to say that I enjoy that I am not content with life - for I was made for something more...something other.
i realize also that contentment and gratitude are different - but in my quest to find my gratitude, i only find this gnawing discontent...and it has bled into all the other corners of my life of late.
i need a dam,
a thick, high stone wall built from fire
and water.
i need some mortar to fill in the leaks
bind up the cracks and make the good
impenetrable
then i can have a safe oceania of swimable contentment
can you build this for me?
i know the answer already.
i must learn to do it myself.
GRATITUDINAL LIST*
-the most beautiful purse i have ever owned in my life
-the distance and perspective of third-party observers (therapist and journal)
-my eyes and the way they see the world (in pictures)
- my in-law's house and acreage
-hot running water
-touch
-sylvia plath, john steinbeck, and annie dillard
-mussorgsky, rimsky-korsakov, debussy, tchaikovsky
-free will
-one on one conversations {with wine}
-tears
-modern medicine and education on psychological disorders
-pen and paper
-blog
-direct deposit
-nonverbal communication
-B&O Espresso's lentil soup (which i usually take to go at least once a week)
-joel, oh joel.
- the internet
- intelligent and admirable friends
-light-hearted moments
-individuality
-my brown pashimna scarf and gray house-sweater
-the elephant grass just outside my side door
-living in the most literate city in the US
*disclaimer: some of these may be trivial and vapid.
I hope you can find one or one thousand reasons to meditate on all the gifts of your particular existence. I think I will take one item from my list per hour tomorrow - to focus on the gratitude for that particular gift. Yes, that suits me perfectly...a good way to build a dam, don't you think?
(would you like to take the dam tour?- hah hah)
~lady whit
4 comments:
i forgot one!
HEALTH INSURANCE.
I love your list dear friend.
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
"learn to build it myself" sounds as isolated as "serious attitude adjustment." i hear more self-loathing in them than i am accustomed from you.
i've been pondering your "mortar." perhaps we're the mortar. a gooey concoction of old friends softened by tears and wine, stirred by debussy, in a pot of plath.
also, you never finished your "on one hand" (i think it reads "one on hand" - but i knew what you meant). you only listed the argument against contentment. i suppose your poem is a support for contentment, in that it affirms the effect it might have on your life.
on defining contentment - i'm afraid the dictionaries and thesauruses have it wrong. it's not the state one finds oneself after having been satisfied, pleased, fulfilled. Perhaps the great minds of history will do better.
Although it may be true that "they merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment,"(Pietro Aretino)
and it is even possible that "contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence," (Thomas C. Haliburton)
still, "happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today." (John Dryden)
after all, we ask not much, but for this: "To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this." (Teiga)
i loved reading your list, friend. in fact,i came across a "book of lists" in the bookstore the other day and thought of you. thank you for sharing. and finally, if you want to build it yourself, the space is yours. but if you ever want a fellow builder, you know where to find me.
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