Habitual Gratitude

Word for the Day  Gratefulness draws on the best of the human spirit in all of us.  It renews and refreshes us, and best of all it is contagious.  -Amy Edelstein-  This is officially my last habitual post here on Habitual Gratitude . You can still find me blogging on my new website A Late Bloomer Living Gratefully .  This blog won’t be gone. Hanging out on the world wide web, I will be revisiting it and inviting readers to keep checking out the other 2,820 posts that reside here.  It was time for a change though. Learning a new platform is challenging and full of fear at times, but it is also invigorating. Comfortable and complacent here, I am revitalized by a shift to a website that allows a broader approach to my writing. My new website, like me, is a work in progress and will take time to bloom fully.  My body of work, published and unpublished, is expansive. I can share more of it, and contain it in one place, at A Late Bloomer Living Gratefully. T...

Today I am grateful for health care workers who keep serving and scientists who keep researching. Their tenacious efforts over these two years of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be understated. I am grateful for my own continued health and for perspective. Two years ago this weekend, my part of the world was really beginning to feel the huge impact that the pandemic was about to have on our daily lives.  I wrote 19 Gratitudes to Counter COVID-19  then. As I read it now, these words grab me: It has been crazy, uncharted territory we have found ourselves in. For those of us living in the U.S., it has really just been the last few days that have opened our eyes wide to the potential for many sick people, weeks of shutdowns, unknown economic impacts, normalcy thrown out the window in many ways we usually take for granted. What can we do to manage in such uncertain times? What can we do to keep ourselves healthy and grounded so we can be of help to others, or have a better chance of r...

  "Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid of standing still."  -Chinese Proverb- This quote caught my attention today because I often refer to myself as a slow learner and a late bloomer. It was fitting for me to weave that in to my new website's name  "A Late Bloomer Living Gratefully."  When I first started in recovery, people talked about how alcoholics stop growing emotionally when they start drinking.  I believe there is plenty of truth in that. I started drinking at 14 and stopped at 24. Ten years, and a crucial ten years in a young person's development.  Life set me up to be a slow learner and a late bloomer. I have had to learn hard lessons of acceptance along the way regarding this, but now it is also something I embrace and love about myself. A different version of this proverb has "going" instead of "growing."  Another good reminder to me. Go slowly. Have patience. Don't push my own agenda-usually ego-driven-let things ...

"Let come what comes, let go what goes. See what remains." -Ramana Maharshi- Letting go can be so hard, and so necessary. It's a daily process for me, and one I will never perfect. Yet, in the practice of letting go, the rewards come. Unburdening. Clarifying. Releasing. All these and more help me maintain energy for what truly matters and where I can truly make a difference: the thoughts and actions I choose.  Hanging on depletes and drains, whether it is regret, changing bodies, evolving relationships, unhealthy perceptions or wrong-sized ego. Let go. Let go or be dragged. Letting go is a form of love. It takes courage to let go. Fear would rather have us keep a tight grip.  When I let go, it also helps the peace and gratitude flow. Even if it's only for a few minutes, that peace is enough to save me from myself. Right now, I am in the process of shifting from this blog to my new website and blog: A Late Bloomer Living Gratefully.  I have fear and uncertainty, and a ...

Living gratefully today, I am in awe of cells and the jobs they do. I am appreciating the courage and faith that continue to be developing in my life here in my late fifties. First, about those cells, another random indication like those I mentioned in yesterday's post .  There are a couple of housing developments going up in our part of town. I like to see the progress. As I ran on Saturday, it got me thinking about new construction on the cellular level. Did you know that our bodies replace somewhere around 330 billion cells each day, mostly blood cells and those in our intestines? Amazing! And it is done with no direction or guidance from our conscious self.  In contrast to those billions of cells, I have been working on a single website over recent months. Just one. My own. It is titled "A Late Bloomer Living Gratefully" and can be found here . ( https://gratefulbloomer.com/ ) Ten years ago this month I started this blog, my first adventure into publishing content onl...

Living gratefully today, I rest in appreciation of daily recovery from alcoholism, the peace in family time together, and the endorphins a nice run in the rain brought me yesterday. I give thanks for random indications that every day is full of reminders and of good. Here are some: 1. A bathroom break while out doing some grocery and stock up shopping gave me the view of an empty vodka pint in the trash can in the stall I used. I wondered what story went with that bottle. My story had I been the one drinking it? Ugly.  2. A toddler in her boots zig-zagging down the trail in front of her mom on what started out as an icy morning, then March balmy, and returned to ice and snow overnight. That little girl was having a joyful outing. Simple joy.  3. I ran in a misty fog in my nice weatherproof jacket we got on Bainbridge Island, Washington in 2013 when we were there for the Seattle Marathon. It was a bit of a splurge and in part preparation for a predicted rainy start to the marat...

Word for the Day  There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it. -Gustave Flaubert- Thursdays are garbage and recycling pickup days in our neighborhood. As I left my house yesterday morning and backed my car out of the garage, the garbage and recycling trucks came one after the other to unload our two receptacles.  I was blocked in briefly, on my way to an early meeting, with a little time to spare. It all probably took less than a minute. It was a good pause and brought a smile to my face. In my meditation time earlier, inspired by a conversation with and suggestion from a recovery friend,  I had realized I was getting stuck yet again. I had been crowding my Higher Power out. In other words, I hadn't been taking out my inner garbage. I had been recycling the kind of thinking that is defeating and exhausting. In recovery circles we call this stinking thinking. It was indeed getting smelly. I had no use for it anymore, like the household garbage we h...

Today I am grateful for the safe travels we-students, chaperones, and bus driver-had on our recent Civil Rights Trip. I appreciate all who helped guide us on our various tours, sharing their passion and their stories.  The history of the Civil Rights Movement is heavy with struggle, setbacks, hatred, and tragedies. It is also uplifted by the amazing courage, faith, and perseverance of those who kept risking their lives for what matters most.  We saw historic places. Stood on sacred ground. We read, listened, viewed many exhibits, videos, and photos that tell a story in intricate detail. Those details were sometimes full of heartbreaking inhumanity and sometimes imbued with a level of humanity that can help heal those same broken hearts. I knew some of the story of the Civil Rights Movement. I learned, and felt, so much more of it on this trip. It is a story that begins with the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans centuries ago. It is a story most profoundly captured at the ...

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to be a chaperone on a Civil Rights trip with students and two other chaperones. I appreciate that the pandemic is at a place where these trips are possible again. Thank you to the scientists who developed the vaccines which are a big reason why our trip is a go. The 8th graders going on the trip have already studied the Holocaust and will soon be discussing the Civil Rights Movement with classmates. I taught high school social studies myself for ten years, with not a lot of time spent on any one historical theme, including this one. I knew a little then. I know more now. I still have so much to learn.  I don't think any of us going on this trip really know what we will be experiencing. You can't know some of these things until you stand on the ground where events took place and are memorialized, see the words and faces of the people who suffered, endured, led.  I have immersed myself in some reading and viewing of people and stories lik...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the quiet, and the gentle sounds my ears are allowing me to hear. I also appreciate the clementines I have been enjoying and all who helped bring them to me. When an opportunity came up to create written word to honor Black History Month at my school, I set to work. The inspiration for any and all art, all students and staff invited to participate, was this quote from Desmond Tutu:  "My humanity is bound up in yours. For we can only be human together." I am still coming to understand my white privilege and I also know what marginalization feels like. I don't know what it is like to be discriminated against because of my skin color, but I do know what it is like to feel less than, to be invisible. I tapped into my own humanity.  I had already written a poem last fall that became a good start. I built from there. Here is what I created: In Desmond Tutu’s words:  “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”...

Today I am grateful for sunshine, a nice walk, family time, and good driving weather.  I am especially grateful today for my mom on her 91st birthday today! For the care she receives in the nursing home and the sense of peace she has, at least at times, as perceived by me.  This is the last professional photo taken of my mom. I believe it was taken for the church directory somewhere around four years ago.  I like this picture of her. Her loving warmth comes through and the blues look really nice together. Blue is one of my favorite colors too.  She is more wizened now, often slouching in a recliner in the nursing home lobby. Her left eye sometimes looks red and sore. In other words, she is looking pretty good for 91.  This is the card I picked out for her and read to her when my husband Darcy and I visited yesterday. She isn’t going to remember if I gave her a card or not. She doesn’t remember that 57 years ago at this time, she was pregnant with me, her 11th ch...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the chance to sleep in a little and have a slower-paced morning. I am also grateful for the mix of colors the morning sky is offering currently.  Add the Healthy Minds app to my gratitude list too. It is one of the two I use for my daily mindfulness and meditation practices. The other one is Insight Timer . Both are free for general use, and for an affordable charge, additional features are made available. I appreciate the features that each offers.  Healthy Minds, created by Dr. Cortland Dahl, was developed at The Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Richard Davidson, a leading expert, professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, and founder of the Center, provides some scientific and research backing for the practices that are so nicely presented by "Cort" and others.  The app moves through five phases of practice. I have completed "Foundations" and "Awareness" and am currently on "Con...

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.  -Eckhart Tolle- A healthy outside starts from the inside.  -Robert Ulrich- One of the meditation apps I use, Insight Timer, gives lovely quotes each time you go into the app. The two above recently followed one after the other. I took note. It is only with inner awareness that I can change my thoughts and actions. Certainly, others help me with that awareness too, but the heavy lifting is done within. After years of struggling to make it a regular habit, mindfulness and meditation are now part of my routine. It is making a significant difference in how I perceive myself and the world around me, just like living gratefully does. Together, the two make my inner sanctum more comfortable and at peace.  Not all the time. I don't think such a constant state is possible. But more comfort and peace more often.  Less thinking that hinders me. Less thinking period. And less thinking clears up more time for awareness. Awareness. Paus...

Living gratefully today, on this Valentine's Day, I embrace the love I have for my husband Darcy, our family, extended families and friends. For strangers who help in unseen ways, for my ever-patient Higher Power. And for myself in new and transformative ways that continue to unfold here in midlife. This is from my first Valentine's Day post on Habitual Gratitude, on February 14, 2013:  I am grateful for the love that I have in my life today; faith, family, friends, self. And for the unconditional love I have most learned from others in recovery from alcoholism and addiction. There were a few years in my life, quite a few, when Valentine's Day served as a reminder, and a painful one at that, of what I didn't have-a husband, a family of my own. But the practice of gratitude helped me reach the point where I could frame it positively. I have always been loved by my family of origin and I have never been friend-less. I came to appreciate the love I did have in my life, not...

“So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key.” (from Already Gone, written by Jack Tempchin and Robb Strandlund, performed by the Eagles)  I was sharing conversation yesterday with some friends. Recovery people supporting one another through laughter, tears, moments of clarity, genuine honesty. Our time together is often like that. We were talking about selfishness and self-centeredness. The kind that got us drunk, kept us drunk, and can still get us stuck in our sobriety.  A little earlier, scrolling social media I came across this quote from Deepak Chopra:  "If you can observe your thoughts, you are obviously not your thoughts. If you can  observe something, you are intrinsically free from your observation."  I was reminded of the significant progress I have made in recent years with just this: not getting stuck in thoughts that only impede me. This is due to several factors, but the biggest is my commitmen...

Word for the Day  Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning. -Desmond Tutu- Beautiful words to start a new day. Today is Friday and I do appreciate that, but I also appreciate "Thank God I'm Forgiven."  I wrote about it in a post on September 9, 2013 and it flows nicely with the words above. Here is part of that post: This TGIF was seen on a sign outside a church in my area. TGIF: Thank God I'm forgiven. I am grateful for the role of forgiveness in my life. Others have forgiven me and continue to forgive me. My husband Darcy tops that list because I need his forgiveness more than anyone else's. Other than myself, I am toughest on him. It reminds me of this little prayer: "Lord, make no one's life worse off for having crossed my path today." If I keep that in mind, less forgiveness is needed. Then there's self-forgiveness. I was my own worst enemy through my teen years and my active drinking. I made mistakes. I felt sha...

Today I am grateful for my siblings and our collective life experience. I am especially thinking of my sister Zita today on her milestone 60th birthday! Have a special day Zita!  And I am thinking how this makes me one of only four siblings remaining younger than 60. How the heck did we get from sharing our "Waltons" benches at our kitchen table decades ago to pretty much all of us being eligible for senior discounts at restaurants now? How did we go from farm kids out sledding in the winter and playing ball in the summer, to grandparents watching our grandkids play ball and sled?  Time passes. Lives are lived. We have been very fortunate. Thirteen siblings and twelve of us are plugging along still. Mary Jo made it to 61 before metastatic breast cancer ended her life. Dad was 74 when he died of a heart attack. Mom will turn 91 in just a few days. It is udderly unbelievable when I stop and think about the pace of the years.  That is why I so enjoyed this thrift store find ...

Today I am grateful for a good book in The War I Finally Won  and a good movie in "Just Mercy." The book and the movie were good places to put thoughts and energy this weekend.  My husband Darcy, an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, used the phrase "spiritual priorities" in the sermon he gave yesterday. Whenever I walk away from a sermon with more to consider, the preacher has done their job. Thanks Darcy! It gave me pause. What are my spiritual priorities?  *Remembering that I am a spiritual being on a human path, not vice versa, is a good place to start. *Then taking the all-important time to connect with my Higher Power, Universe, Friend, Knowing, God. I know this Source is always with me, but I forget, and I get in my own way often, so I need to make conscious effort to have conscious contact.  *This happens in numerous ways, and can be as brief as a pause. Meditation time to listen and seek. Prayer time to talk and ask. Open awareness to keep tapped into...

If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?    -Rumi- Many have appreciated the writings and wisdom of Rumi for seven centuries. Language is an amazing thing. Rumi wrote mostly in Persian, but the meaning is not lost in translation. Words are translated in different languages and in different hearts. My interpretation: If I get frustrated often when things don't go my way, if I lack acceptance of circumstances beyond my control, I miss opportunities to learn and grow. I become more dull rather than more polished. I shine less because a narrow mind didn't reach for the polishing cloth. I see this in my job setting as well. Young people who are protected from disappointment, failure, and natural consequences begin to suffer the same dullness. It looks like lack of confidence and/or stress and anxiety. They don't believe they can handle difficult things because they weren't given their own polishing cloths. Here's the rub parents: Consider if you are r...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate our stationary bike and the feeling of muscles working and supporting one another. I am thankful of the reminders of how fortunate I am to have the mobility and strength that I do. As I listened to a meditation track this morning, I was being asked to focus and reflect on the ways my body is kind to me.  I haven't typically used the word kind to apply to body processes. I considered my blinking eyes that help me see and my circulating cells as they carry oxygenated blood throughout my body. If that isn't kindness, what is?  Appreciation for my physical body has long been on my gratitude list, imperfections and all. Running marathons, birthing and breastfeeding my son, shoveling snow, walking miles a day are things I have taken pride in, and also make efforts to not take for granted. A cancer diagnosis and removal of now eight body parts because of cancer, or the threat of cancer, have deepened my gratefulness. But blinking eyes, coordinati...

Word for the Day  Mysticism is the experience, not talking or thinking about it, but the actual experience of Oneness with all. (Br. David Steindl-Rast) Oneness. Isn't that a unifying, chasm-crossing word? Isn't that something our world, small scale and large scale, could use now and always? I picked up my coffee and took a sip. I considered the Oneness of the soil and weather that produced the coffee, all the way to the ground coffee I put in our Keurig, with water from a convenient faucet, to make that fresh cup of brew I just enjoyed sipping.  I asked myself, would I even recognize a coffee plant if I saw one?  Probably not. Here's a picture of a field full of coffee plants: Photo from Specialty Coffee Association It's safe to say that this field is many hundreds of miles from my home. Mysticism all along the way. There is much I have already experienced this morning, and throughout my day, that I can do with a sense of mysticism. Of course, writing about it is one s...

Today I am grateful for safe travels, pleasant family time, and nice weather for a couple of good runs and walks.  My husband Darcy and I stopped at Scooter’s Coffee Saturday morning while in Sioux Falls visiting his family. This location is near my mother-in-law’s. We’ve driven by it for years, saying we should try it sometime. We finally did. The coffee and breakfast sandwiches we had were enjoyable and prompted a second stop on our way out of town yesterday.  I appreciated the cups our coffee came in. Festive and “hearty.” Every season is “ A Season to Share.” I especially noted that Scooter’s was established in 1998 . . . the same year Darcy and I established our marriage. A little research tells me that Scooter’s started in Bellevue, NE, and now has nearly 400 locations, including nine in Sioux Falls. The name stems from their fast drive-thru reputation--helping customers “scoot in and scoot out” with their coffee.  So there's at least two really good things that sta...

WORD FOR THE DAY For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart  each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile. Writer, activist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said these words.  When I read them this morning, here are some random thoughts: *"Every hour" reminds me to slow down and live in the now, the hour, to stay present, notice. *"Grace" is a beautiful word and it fills me with a sense of Great Spirit, Universe, Friend. It reminds me I am not alone, ever.  *"Every hour is grace" can also be said "every moment is gift." *"I feel gratitude in my heart" when I live gratefully, embrace it, practice it, and the beauty is that it spreads from my heart outward. *Loved ones, acquaintances, strangers--smiles shared warm both people doing the sharing.  *Suffering and grief are not contests and they are very personal and individual. Regardless of our circumstances, we have each known ...

Today I am grateful for rest, good books to read, gravity to keep us stable. I am also grateful for a new address book.  Our address book was getting old and cluttered, outdated and confusing. We got a new one as a gift at Christmas and I spent some time last weekend transferring addresses from the old to the new.  In the process, my thoughts and emotions included: *The sadness and grief as I came across the names of family members who have died in recent years. Some, like two of my aunts, no longer need a spot in the address book at all. Others, like my sister and one of my brothers-in-law no longer need their spouses listed with them.  *Have you ever considered the addresses of deceased loved ones? Wondered where they reside?  I know that part of each of them resides in me, in my heart.  *More sadness, and also some peace, as I put Mom's nursing home address "officially" in the book, thinking that the next new book will likely not need a spot for her either....

Living gratefully today, I say Happy Birthday to our son Sam.  Happy 20th! I so appreciate you and what being your mom means to me. It's 4:52 a.m. as I write this, almost exactly the time you officially entered the world twenty years ago on a Thursday morning at Regina Medical Center. Being pregnant, giving birth, and being your mom every day since is one of my biggest joys and learning experiences. It is also bittersweet every year as you grow more into a young man. Time goes so fast. You are doing so well.  This is the first time we won't be together on your birthday. You left yesterday to return to your second semester of college after the holiday break. And you have also left your teens behind you.  This  was the post I wrote two years ago, just weeks before your senior year of high school took a decidedly strange and unwelcome turn when the COVID-19 pandemic threw us all for a loop.  There has been plenty that has come and gone in these two years. College ...

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.  I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” “Smile, breathe and go slowly.” (Thich Nhat Hanh) In recent days, three men have died. They had their last 24 hours. They each touched my life, and the lives of so many others. The singer and actor Meat Loaf died on Thursday at age 74. He was a unique performer when he hit the music scene in the late 70's, and I appreciated several of his songs. The album "Bat Out of Hell" was released in 1977 and became one of the best selling albums of all time.   In 1978, two big hits from the album hit the charts-- "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." These two and the title track are all such good sing-alongs. But it was "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" that was honored with numerous drunken renditions at parties in my youthful drinking days. We sang all th...

"Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." From the "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963 It seemed fitting to close this week out with another quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is from arguably his most famous speech, but not always the words that are focused on. That's one of the reasons I like it so much. Another reason is that it is just what we need today, in these times. Do you ever stop and think "two years ago today . . . ?" Two years ago today our son Sam was in his senior year of high school. SnowWeek was coming up. We were doing some early planning for his graduation party. His eighteenth birthday was just around the corner.   We were starting to hear more about the coronavirus, but it still seemed distant and not something that we were giving much worry. We had no idea what was coming, and if we had we probably wouldn't have believed it.  A year ago, we were relishing the amazing poem "The Hill W...

"We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself,  a society that can live with its conscience."          (Martin Luther King, Jr. in  Montgomery, Alabama, March 25, 1965) My mom was pregnant with me when MLK, Jr. said these words. It was also my brother Morry's 10th birthday and my sister Ruth had just turned one the day before. There were five other children between Ruth and Morry, and three older ones. Two more would come after me.   I think about the world we all came into in the fifties and sixties (the youngest being born in 1970), and the tumultuous but transformative times our nation was in. Progress was made and laws were passed. But many got complacent and others got greedy and power-hungry and we lost some of the humanity for which MLK, Jr. and so many others had worked so hard and peacefully. My next thought with this quote was what if I said it this way "I must come to see that the end I seek is a woman...

Today I am grateful for life's little mysteries. And the big ones too. I am also grateful for my sister Ann as she celebrates her birthday today. Happy Birthday!  One of the little mysteries?  A couple days ago, the older pair of glasses I wear when I run and workout had lost one of the tiny screws holding it together. I was still wearing them, but needed a better fix. As I put them away in their case after my run yesterday morning, what did I discover amidst the cleaning cloth I keep in there?   The tiny screw.  Somehow it was there, hadn't fallen out the few times I had used the case, and it caught my eye. I put it back in place, problem solved--for now. The mystery of how that little screw fortuitously came off at the time and in the place it did is the kind of mystery that makes me smile. And speaking of smiles, how about these two? Thank you to the neighborhood family who created these smiles. What a fun idea and one I have not seen before. I don't personal...

"Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in." (Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March for Integrated Schools, April 18, 1959.) I am embarrassed to admit that more than once late last week I said how much I was looking forward to a 3-day weekend without even acknowledging why I was getting one. The courageous work of Martin Luther King, Jr. set so many good and necessary things in motion, and also put him in danger.  Born on January 15, 1929, he died at the hands of an assassin on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN. He was 39 and in his short life had changed my country and our world. He had already won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest recipient to that date, at age 35, in 1964. He was also a great orator and had such a way of putting powerful and poetic words together.  In today's polarized world, there isn't much that s...

glorious : marked by great beauty or splendor; delightful, wonderful, magnificent  having a striking beauty or splendor that evokes feelings of delighted admiration Thank you Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries for these definitions. Glorious is a word I probably use more than others. It is just one of those words that carries the right tone and emphasis, particularly when referring to the wonders of the natural world.  It was the word on my mind and heart yesterday as I took notice of the stark contrast of an evergreen tree overlapping the barren branches of the neighboring non-evergreen. Did I mention the striking blue backdrop of sky that helped create the crisp image in front of me? This glorious scene touched my human heart, resonating with the parts of myself that have always been with me--a writer's heart, a runner's body, a seeker's journey inward, a grateful soul. And it resonated with those barren parts too. The ones laid to rest peacefully after having their ...