On Gratitude

Valentin Serov, Girl with peaches, 1881, Tretyakov Gallery

During a particular rubbish period of my life (health was in the pits, I suffered from anxiety, and as for marriage – I was at this point ready to believe that whoever prefaced it with ‘happily ever after’ was demented) I came across this notion of keeping a gratitude diary. The premise is simple; at the close of each day, write down five things you are grateful for.

This was extremely uncool, I felt, as I opened up a notebook to a blank page. I looked around my room for inspiration. I took in the draping cobwebs on my ornate cornices. 'Must sort that out', I thought. 'The wardrobe is hideous', I mused, as my eye ran over its sullen, wooden, artless form. If only I had the money to put in a couple of new ones. How much are the kind with glass and down-lights, and all my shoes arranged in pristine rows?

I do not have anything pastel in my house. I don’t arrange books by the colours of their spines or Instagram the cute mason jars full of gluten-free pasta in my pantry. Doing something so twee – writing down what I am grateful for – seemed futile. I couldn’t see past the banality of my tired misery and everyday laundry-list of complaints. Existential pain doesn’t actually reside in these small details of ‘not enough’ though; 'not good enough',' not thin enough', 'not rich enough', 'not tidy enough', however. I was focusing my energy on ‘fixing’ the wrong things.

I have to go deeper than that, I reasoned; I have to think about where I am headed. Self-reflection doesn’t stop at the depth of my skin or my cobwebs. Let me use this gratitude diary as a tool.

So, I persevered.

What am I grateful for…?

1.     The things that make me truly grateful are the words of grace in our prayers that fortify us; the way the words burrow into my sinew and come up when I need them. Those words have impacted my life in known and unknown ways. Prayer is poetic, esoteric, rhythmic. Perhaps I am a writer because during my childhood and young adult years, I was awash in the sound of prayer. I can’t discount the possibility. Prayer is also so complex in the way we approach it, in our motives and our intent and how it instructs us when our prayers are answered.

2.     I am grateful for mercy. As I started writing this, I had a spasm in my bowels, so deep and painful, I had to stop writing and clutch my stomach until it subsided. It was a reminder – to lead a life that is measured and not excessive. I have the unfortunate tendency of all or nothing. All the champagne, all the fun, I can get swept up like a character out of a Russian novel. I want all the gypsies, all the music; forget tomorrow! My body and my soul weren’t built for that. I have to pull back, stay grounded, for the sake of both.

3.     Love. If there is no other tangible sense of God than the existence of love, it is enough for me. Love is what binds us all together, family and stranger. This is a great mystery, and I will return to this thought again with a proper post. But loving family is easy – loving those that love us, is not taxing at all. To love those that upset us, to be patient with them and to bear them; that is how we grow. Dostoyevsky wrote that we are responsible and guilty before all and for all. We understand so little about our responsibility to each other and what God wants of us.

4.     And what of beauty? Where would we be without God opening our eyes to beauty in order for us to seek it? Are we not looking for heaven when we build and fresco cathedrals or stop to look at the way the light in the afternoon touches a bowl of pears on the windowsill? We were born for it, to rise above the dust and carnal animal that seeks to destroy us.

5.     To tie in with the first idea, prayer and blessings are hand-in-hand but also separate. Prayer is a sacrifice that we offer to God; it’s communication, it’s a way to live in step with God. A blessing is God’s answer; it’s God’s mercy, it’s God’s love and the beauty we are able to see and feel. Everything good comes from God. 

My list sort of stands like this, fluctuating and expanding through the days and months. I don’t need to write it again and again. I do, however need to check in with myself – to check myself and my thoughts and actions. Are they good? Where am I headed if I continue to think or do this? 

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