Habitual Gratitude

Living gratefully today, I appreciate my recovery friends and the laughter we share. Drunken laughter was fleeting. Recovery laughter lingers and touches our hearts.  Fleeting. Each moment is fleeting. It comes and goes, often unnoticed. That moment is gone, and the person we were in that moment is also gone. We are really in a constant state of change. It may often be subtle, but then there are the moments and days that bring sudden shifts. Both the subtle and the sudden transform us in truly remarkable ways. Maybe through pain. Maybe through deep joy. Maybe both.  Nature is also always dynamic. The seasons are a wonderful example of this. My favorite stretch of trail to run, walk, and bike is in part my favorite because I experience it a little bit differently each time I travel it. Sunlight or clouds, early or late in the day, spring or fall; the awe-inspiring scene in front of me is always new, fresh in that moment.  I will miss the rich greens and full foliage of sum...

Today I am grateful for: 1. comfortable shoes 2. a cozy blanket on a chilly morning 3. the inquisitive nature of our grandsons 4. hugs shared with loved ones 5. lamplight and the electricity that powers it 6. the play of light, shadows, and a brisk breeze 7. clean water to drink 8. commitment to mindfulness meditation time each day 9. the benefits coming from this commitment  10. chocolate  11. reasonable parents  12. our dog Oliver curled up and sleeping  13. the smell of coffee before and after it is brewed 14. those who helped get coffee to me to brew 15. the road workers doing construction in our area 16. laughter and smiles  17. a willingness to be quiet, wrong, awed  18. the various sounds wind creates 19. morning air, sky, quiet 20. connecting to Nature, Higher Power 21. ease of mind, peace of mind There is simplicity in a gratitude list, and also an expansive energy. For something different, I set my timer for three minutes and wrote a few things on...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the predictable morning sounds of coffee brewing and our dog Oliver eating.  This was the "Word for the Day" last Friday, October 22: “Behold this day, for it is yours to make.”    Black Elk The day before, I came across a similar thought-provoking quote on this bench.  It is on the campus of Augustana University in Sioux Falls, my husband Darcy’s alma mater. We took a stroll there on a beautiful fall day.    “However great your fortune you cannot buy one day.  So live your life remembering you are not here to stay.” A total of nine words in the first quote and twenty in the second. A total of 24 hours in a day, 1,440 minutes, and 86,400 seconds. How will I spend mine today? How will you spend yours?   Take a few pauses and take in the gifts that surround you and spring forth from within you. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Share. Have a good day! 

Today I am grateful for family time, safe travels, fall colors. And for being a runner.  As I was running yesterday morning on a wooded trail, one of my favorite routes close to our house, I noticed movement up ahead. A little mouse came into focus and it seemed to be running in circles. I slowed to a stop and watched it for a bit. It was aware of my presence I think, but it didn’t dash off.  It continued to skitter around in circles. I started rattling off questions in my brain: is this what mice do when they are scared? Is it looking for home or mom? Is there something wrong with it?  Poor thing.  I took off running again and considered the times I run around in circles—either literally or figuratively. Higher Power or the trees probably look down and ask the same questions…what is she doing? Where is she going? It was a good reminder to me to avoid the figurative and frenetic circling I can be so good at in my head and in the hours of a day. Poor thing. It was an ...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate time with my husband Darcy’s family and that our dog Oliver is with us for this visit.  I give thanks for both of my parents and the start in life they gave my siblings and me.  My dad died suddenly twenty-three years ago today. It was a Friday morning and he was at my brother’s farm, our family’s home place, helping with the fall harvest. There was no reviving him. A heart attack took him quickly. When my mom got there, coming from the funeral dinner she was working at, his body was in the ambulance already.  I remember Mom saying that he was still warm. Somehow I appreciate that she had the opportunity to feel his physical warmth one last time before it sank in that her husband of 48 years was gone in the earthly sense. I had last seen my dad in mid-August, just a few weeks after he and Mom had walked me down the “aisle” at my wedding.  I next saw him at the family viewing prior to the start of his public wake on that Sunday af...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual campaign to raise awareness about the impact of breast cancer. Join us as we RISE together to help uplift women in need.  (National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.)  October was rolling along for me, busy with life. Unlike most Octobers, I hadn't felt compelled to write about breast cancer. Last weekend, my husband Darcy and I were out for a bike ride in a neighboring community and our route happened to be the route of a fundraiser for a Komen 3-day walk team. Their walk was winding down, but they had done some chalk drawings on the trail that caught my eye. There was a mixed bag. From "Feck cancer" to "Cancer is harder." (referencing walking 60 miles is easier than dealing with a diagnosis.) There was also "No one fights alone."  These I can embrace and appreciate. The "We love boobs" and "Save the boobies" and pictures like this one below, they rankle me a bit. That's my shado...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the feel of my feet on the ground and of muscles stretching and relaxing. I give thanks for the day ahead, starting with this moment.  My husband Darcy and I took some time on Sunday to enjoy the beautiful and mild weather. We loaded up our bikes and headed for a trail route we have been meaning to do. From there, we headed to a state park we had never been to and took an enjoyable walk, taking in the fall color.  As we walked, I was attracted to this sound:  Leaves rustling in the breeze. Fall leaves sound different than summer leaves. I believe this is a stand of birch trees, but knowing the type of tree isn't necessary to knowing the pleasure of the sound. Nature is for enjoying as much as it is for identifying.  The rustling within this bunch of trees provided a soothing sound to me. The rustling within me isn't always soothing, but it is always beckoning me to keep listening and transforming. 

Today I am grateful for family time and new local excursions this weekend. I also appreciate that gratefulness helps open me to playfulness. I have been listening to a couple podcasts lately that spent some time talking about the importance of play for adults. If it's so good for kids, why do we lose so much of that idea as we "grow up?" So I took a little time yesterday morning to play.  It started with some raking of leaves, a task I have always found enjoyable. Twenty minutes and I had two leaf bags full, after raking the old-fashioned way but with a better, more ergonomic tool than that of my childhood. As I raked, I thought of my childhood, and also that of our kids and grandkids and making piles to jump in.  That task was done and I stepped into the garage. There was a song on the radio (yes, the radio, not my phone). It took me back to the 80's. Darcy was gone, so one stall was empty.The door was closed. I would be my only witness. Yep, I danced a little then a...

Our inner wisdom is persistent, but quiet. It will always whisper,  but it will never stop knocking at your door.  Vironika Tugaleva If my inner wisdom hadn’t been persistent, I might be dead. Sounds dramatic, but is it? It had to be something good in me that kept the ugly active alcoholism from finishing me off one night in a depressed blackout. And in the decades since, I may have stayed stuck in ruts even longer than I did.  And quiet? It may have helped if the wisdom had made a little more noise. But then again, the mean clatter already going on would have needed a pretty high volume to drown it out. Quiet is better. More gentle. Perhaps a little subversive even, in the best way.  Even though I stopped drinking, I continue to be an alcoholic. Alcoholism is as much about thinking as it is about drinking. I am a slow learner, so my inner wisdom has really shown true perseverance. I ignored it, denied it, lied to it, scoffed at it. It persisted and came through. Som...

What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. Robin Wall Kimmerer Are we starving or feasting right now?  The cynic in me says we are feasting on misinformation and excuses. If it’s someone else’s problem or someone else’s fault; we are off the hook. We can be self-righteous in our judgment and complacency. That same cynic, and worried school counselor, also says that we are starving for true connections to other people and the world around us.  The skeptic in me wonders what Planet Earth will look and feel like in the next decades. Can our environment be saved? Will we do what we need to do, individually and collectively, to save it and ourselves? But there's a hopeful optimist within me too, fueled by the generous energy and grace created when I live gratefully. If I feed the present moment with even a little attention and awe, I will contribute to the feast of goodness that has always been here, even if the news and social media cover less...

Today I am grateful for our dog Oliver and how he sometimes snuggles with me, and for daily hugs that my husband Darcy and I share.  I prefer to run in the mornings, and will run in the dark at that time of the day. And I can usually summon the energy after work if I really want to get out there. I don't often run after we've eaten dinner and it's starting to get dark out though. Yesterday was a gray and blustery day and the temperature is turning cooler. It feels like fall.  I was determined to run when I got home from work, but I also had other commitments. I surprised myself by feeling energized enough to run as it closed in on 7:00 p.m. and darkness.I donned my running attire and added the reflective vest I wear for safety when it's either too early or too late for sunlight.  I concentrated on my steps more than usual--to avoid tripping on anything. I also heard more sounds and experienced the night air differently. My senses focused their energies there because the...

Word for the Day  "Life, what an exquisite privilege."  Katie Rubinstein   When I apply this lens, this idea of life as exquisite privilege, here are some of the things I notice: *Looking at a "Blessed" sign in our family room and being struck not by the word itself, but the fact that I could see it, that I can see anything.  *Driving home from work on a lovely fall day and experiencing the windows down, cool breeze, oldies music. Feeling and hearing . . . amazing senses I use throughout my day.  *To be on the receiving end of a smile. From someone else. And sometimes even from myself in the mirror.  *Having a closet full of clothes, some for each season and plenty of variety of occasions.  *Warm water and pleasant smelling soap for washing my hands.  *Access to trusted medical care just minutes from my home.  *Reading words I wrote at painful times, knowing that I made it through, the poignancy of struggle . . .  *The crescent moon...

Today I am grateful for a pleasant afternoon excursion to St. Paul with my husband Darcy yesterday and for the many sensory delights of this time of the year--sights, sounds, smells and more.  Fall is for falling. Autumn is for leaves to accept their fate and humans to accept the darker and colder days ahead. I was out for a run yesterday and first was enjoying the sound of leaves under my feet. Then, I started noticing leaves still making their descent.  What would it be like to take a gentle trip to a new home after hanging out on high for a few months? To know, instinctively, that this is the moment to surrender, let go?  Each leaf takes that journey alone and each has a landing place a little different from the next.  As leaves on the human tree, let us remember what we have in common and honor that we each have a right to our own solitary journey to be directed by something bigger than all of us, not by misguided power and greed.  Colorful foliage can teach...

Funnel: a tube or pipe that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. (Oxford Languages)  As often happens on a run, seemingly random thoughts come into my head and I start mulling them over. Next thing I know, I have the start of a poem. This past Sunday, as I went for a short run near my brothers' farm in Iowa, I was thinking about the priorities in my life and how other things were getting in their way. How can I pare down "all of this" to "just this" and honor my priorities? The visual of a funnel emerged.  When I get overly busy, when work commitments drain hours and energy, I find less time to write and read. Exercise is almost always an honored priority, but it also takes a hit some days. Because we can't get more hours in a day, what I focus on is how I start my day and also conserving energy so I am left with some later in the day. This is more challenging for me now as I recover from surger...

Today I am grateful for the people that I get to work with and the students I am getting to know this year. I am also grateful for words. They are a constant source of intrigue for me.  Mum is a multifaceted word. It means silent, quiet, unspeaking. Mum's the word. Silence is golden much of the time, but most assuredly golden when I am in "let me tell you my opinion" mode.  Trust me Lisa, if people want your opinion, they will ask. This is especially true of the people with whom you share a residence, but also in many other locales. Unspeaking is underrated in today's world.  Mum can also refer to one's mother, especially if you are British. Mum, mom, potato, potato. Either way, I am thinking about my mom now. What is it like in your aging body with failing eyes and ears?  What's it like to have a failing mind? Do you have a different sense of time at age 90, with days blurring together? Either way, have a good day Mom!  And then there's the flowering mum....

Living gratefully today, I savor the sights and sounds my senses bring to me.   This morning I took a mindful approach to something I do pretty automatically every morning: making a pot of coffee. The sound of water filling the reservoir. The feel of a filter as it's placed in the basket. The smell of coffee from the can. My eyes telling me when to stop pouring. The chugging and gurgling sounds of a brew cycle. The warmth from the pot as I stood near and inhaled the newly brewed coffee aroma.  Fresh coffee smoothly pouring into a favorite mug. The feel of my fingers grasping the handle. Steam lifting and rolling from the cup. The first sips, almost hot on my lips and in my mouth.  And then I started thinking about the origins of my coffee. It started on a plant. Beans were harvested. Nature and humans played their roles, as did machines. I savored another sip, considering the route and roads taken to get this coffee to the store where we bought it.    ...

Today I am grateful for safe travels and time with my siblings and extended family over the weekend, and for my husband Darcy doing the driving.  Sometimes when I travel to the area where I grew up, I don’t even think about the bar that was my old haunt. This past weekend, while Darcy put gas in our vehicle and then put it through the car wash, I could look down the street and see that bar. It will remain nameless here, but it has the same name it had back in the day.  It was good to have the reminder of my drinking days, and of the importance of my recovery days. Beer was 35 cents a tap at that bar in the late 1980’s. I drank there before I was of legal age. I can still tell you the numbers to a couple songs on the jukebox back then: #148-Billy Squier's "My Kinda Lover" and #119- Autograph's "Turn Up the Radio."  My drinking career was relatively short. It spanned ten years, but I drank a lot in those years. My consumption easily surpassed my spending. In h...