Yo-Yos: Life and the Weather

Living gratefully today, I give thanks for a working washer and dryer, and for a sink and water to do our dishes in as we await the arrival of a new dishwasher. I have washed a lot of dishes in my day, and it brings back smiles of the system we had down to efficiently clean up after our large family meals when we were growing up. 

Life and the weather have been delivering many ups and down lately, and over the last 14 months or so as we have lived with the pandemic, social unrest, uncertainty in many forms.

There have been recent ups and downs in the weather. Snow flakes and 70's, sun, wind, clouds, rain. A nice day to tease us and then a reminder of the fickle nature of Mother Nature. The last few days in our area have seen persistent clouds and some rain. The gray days when we could be treated to longer hours of sunshine seem like a real downer. Stick around. It will get better.

And then there are the ups and downs of social issues. The strain on so many as the Chauvin trial unfolded and Daunte Wright was shot and killed. The relief and justice in Chauvin's guilty verdicts, followed closely by the killing of Andrew Brown Jr. There is much work to be done to dismantle systemic racism and we can't seem to build momentum for it. 

The ups and downs of the pandemic continue as well. I appreciate being fully vaccinated and how that has allowed for connections I hadn't been able to make in a long time. I am thankful that my family and so many others I care about are already or on their way to being fully vaccinated. But India and other counties are having a horrible stretch with COVID right now, and in the U.S. vaccine hesitancy is concerning, younger people and children are getting infected and several children have died. 

Ups and downs on a global and local scale. More personally, I have had recent conversations with people who are suffering the loss of loved ones to suicide and lung disease, and still others who are in the turmoil of depression, of difficult decisions, of finding the staying power needed to get through a grueling school year. 

Exhausted some days. Energized on others. Hopeful at times. Pretty dang glum at others. Living gratefully has never made me immune to life's yo-yo. It has made it possible for me to do things like write it out here, talk it out with trusted others, run and exercise it out. For all these outlets and so much more, I am thankful today. The lows aren't as low and they don't last as long. Gratefulness has much sustaining power.