It is currently raining and I’ve got what appears to be a sinus infection. I just largely undid today what I had spent most of yesterday working on. People in my inner circle are going through a handful of first-world-problems (sadly there are always a few facing larger threats). Likely for most anyone reading this too, the majority of the challenges that you are facing right now, that creep into your mind like uninvited dinner guests are likely only first-world-problems. This seems like a good place and time to reflect on what I am grateful for. It is time for Thanksgiving in August!
I am thankful for the rain and this sinus infection. It took that one-two punch to get me to stop working outside and come inside and write this. I am thankful for the team of medical folks at my disposal and the wonderful healthcare insurance that we have. (I am thankful for….) a (seemingly) endless supply of affordable clean water just waiting for me anytime at any one of several faucets throughout our home. The feeling of warm water on my hands when I mindfully wash them (don’t always succeed in doing it mindfully!) The knowledge that I could leave a faucet on continuously for the rest of my life and be able to afford to pay for the estimated 21 million gallons that I would waste before the actuarial table calls for me. The knowledge and curiosity needed to estimate that that single faucet would waste over 21.4 million gallons over the rest of my lifetime. My sense of wonder and intellectual curiosity is as limitless as the clean water available to me. By the way, it would require about another 150 million other faucets running continuously for the next three-odd-decades to drain Lake Superior. The beauty in the simultaneity of incredibly large and small things co-existing and the ability to discern between the two.
Being able to ride my bike (that a neighbor gave me because he no longer wanted or needed it, and it is a nice bike to boot) down to the Nooksack river and sit and meditate without fear of warplanes or malaria or starvation interrupting my lifelong search for stillness. The hours I have spent listening to that same river babble and gurgle and whatever else it is that soothing healing flowing water does. Of course, I know that it is not the same river today as it was yesterday, that is just a slight-of-hand trick. The feeling of calm that I enjoy when meditating and for a little while afterwards.
All the good television and movies and books that are just sitting there at the library waiting for me to enjoy them. The fact that I can rewatch a movie after several years and almost get to experience it anew. The Big Lebowski and The Joker and Citizen Kane as well as The Tao of Physics and On The Road. Quantum mechanics and general relativity and LegosTM and Sush and that interesting spoon I bought at goodwill years ago and use regularly. I advocate capitalizing important magical words such as Sushi and Love. My wood burning stove and friends that I think of daily and know think of me often as well. My immune system and live music. The mercurial coyness of Mt. Baker (Mt. Kulshan) and the delicate perfection of the several tiny seasonal streams that form every year around Bagley Lakes and Mazama Lakes. They look so fragile. I am blessed to be able to share in their beauty and their lessons. That I can write these things. That I love writing these things. That in this moment I am writing these things.
What do you have to be thankful for today?
