10/17/2024
Gratitude is such a fascinating concept, one that eluded me when I worked at Gratitude in Berkeley, CA, because, as they would have said, I was present to the scarcity paradigm, and they would have been right. Despite being surrounded by abundance, my thinking was still connected to growing up poor, and the struggles I faced. It's no secret that I have been white knuckling the struggle bus lately, obviously a major part of why I've been quiet on the socials.
I'm aware of how I have played into the shiny presentation of our lives by *not* being as vocal about my struggles, and for me, that kind of creation has just been outside the scope of my bandwidth.
I *have* kept busy drawing and painting, and some animating, partly because I need something to keep my mind busy from the self-talk and wheel spinning that I'm prone to. More than that, it has been a way of getting lost in that zone or flow that other artists talk about. So lost that I absently curl my tongue around the corner of my mouth, and I sense my mother watching me proudly. When she was alive she would tease me about it, and I responded in shame, but now, it gives me life because I am present to her acknowledging my zone-ness. Maybe she was teasing because she didn't understand it and I probably looked goofy, but I have decided that she was touched by how lost I was able to get, at play with crayons and markers.
Today I found myself feeling a sense of gratitude for my very struggles themselves. For my suffering. And I kind of surprised myself because an earlier version of me would have laughed out loud at the thought. But then I thought about the idea that, so many of us would never learn to aspire without a certain measure of suffering. "No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness" (Poe?)
Not that I am excellent, but countless souls have suffered far more greatly than I have. People better by far than I will ever be. People whose suffering had a meaning, or a purpose.
An athlete trains for a marathon, a kind of suffering that I would never consider, lol. A butterfly who is helped from its cocoon may die because it didn't have the necessary struggle to gain the strength to unfurl its wings. I've forgotten what kind, but there are trees who will never propagate unless their seeds are burned in fire, so some of those wild fires are a perfectly natural part of the cycle of life.
I do realize that being grateful for my struggle, as compared to others shows I still have some work to do, but it doesn't make me feel better about my life, it makes me feel fortunate. I just don't like how I can't seem to understand it without seeing it through the lens of other's suffering. But then again, there is no other. I'm extremely grateful that I'm still learning and growing, and the fact that my journey hasn't killed me yet, proves to me that I'm not done fighting.
Anyway, thanks for reading this, the image is a work-in-progress of a portrait of Thich Nhat Hanh.
