Yay, Me and Yay, You For Showing Up Today
Today I’m sick of this journal, of publishing the blog, of being The GratiDUDE, of looking for beauty in the muddy March earth and dried up dog turds, of this fucking pandemic, of wearing masks, of going to work, of making coffee, of all this morning crap, of all the dailiness, of looking on the bright side, of being disciplined and of caring whether or not these musings matter to any one reading them.
There’s my one true sentence, Papa Hemingway.
I want to just say screw it. But here I am anyway, with pen clicked open for business. What can I say that that I haven’t said over these twelve years? Why am I even asking the question? When learning Spanish or algebra or piano or fly fishing, one has to repeat old lessons many times, as well as learn new stuff. This daily gratefulness practice is surely the same. Being grateful for old tried-and-true verities is a way to lodge it deep and become fluent in gratitude, also. Who knows what new angle will show up, if one is poised and attentive and at the ready?
The more you give, the more you get. There’s a return eventually on investment for this effort, even when you shuffle in half asleep, punch in routinely at the time clock and don’t feel like it, the way I will at my day job in a while.
This is like going to the gym. Just start and get warmed up, go through the motions for a few reps, get to a sweat. A habit. Don’t ask why, no matter what’s going on around you. How very like the gym. Just start writing. This is my life, my gratitude, no one else’s. Habit, oh, habit. Put the earbuds in and just start. These may be the sweetest of days, when I feel stuck and just write anyway, sometimes surprised by wonder when there is none in sight.
Working it every day, striving to not go too far down in the shitter or too high in the Icarus sky. Just work it, reach for it, over the long-term, sustainably, in these daily pages. When there’s sun, when there’s snow, when I hurt, when I don’t. Just play every day, take every at bat, even if you strike out.
When I got up this morning and futzed around making the coffee I’m sick of making, I noticed how quiet and tranquil it was. I was in no hurry to tap on my phone and check my email, texts, voice mails and the weather and the New York Times, before I started writing in this journal. The journal I’m sick of. I wanted to hold the world at bay for as long as I could and just be suspended in the stilldark world and hear the gradual heating and urgency of the water in the kettle, nothing more.
To just be.
It reminded me of the summer I worked on a farm, after my divorce, when I was trying to get my footing and figure out what was next. I remembered what it felt like to open the gate and let the cows out in the morning and how it was like a big brown river undammed and how you’d better get the hell out of the way because there was no stopping them. I felt like that this morning, too.
I’m sick of it, every bit of it, and I’m doing it anyway. So yay, me and yay, you, too, for showing up wherever you are today.
