Sure, the Vermont weather leaves something (a lot?) to be desired as the year turns. Sure the world is saddled with a vast array of apparently intractable problems. But here I am, still standing.
It’s always time for “the first time.” Hence an exercise I undertook on New Year’s Eve. Just came to me out of the blue as I sat before a raging fire. I had no idea how to do “it.” No guide. Nothing.
Went to my nearby home office. Grabbed an empty notebook. (Far too many of those around.)
And I started scribbling a list of all the things I had to be thankful for on 12.31.2005. Included were, of course, the obvious, like the gift of 95+ years of love my Mom gave me. But I also tipped my hat to the thousands of scientists who had worked … for me! … on the discovery of the drug that manages my hypertension. The flowers that bloomed in VT last May. The incredibly hard work that the authors of the books I read in 2005 put in for the sole purpose of making my day. Airline mechanics, pensions severed, who were still determined to make my 200+ flights in 2005 safe.
And on.
And on.
The real point is that the “exercise,” in only the first 10 minutes, resulted in 14 pages of dense, scribbled entries.
There is no “religious message” here, no “meta-point.” The simple point is that shit does indeed happen, and will happen again. Yet so many, many, many wonderful-wondrous-amazing things around us are invisible but worthy of down-on-one’s-knees thanks.
Whew!
Wow!
(Try it.) (Works better than Valium or Jim Beam, I’d aver.)