Gratitude-at-a-glance

Truly grateful for the big things and the little, the ordinary and the extraordinary. For the mistakes I’ve made and learned from, for the people I’ve met and places I’ve been. I daily count my blessings, say thanks, am aware of how much I have and how much I’ve been given, I notice simple pleasures and wonder how in the world did I get SO LUCKY! For me, remembering to be grateful helps divert my focus away from what I don’t have, and instead appreciate all that I do. I often remind myself, and my kids, to think of losing the little things and the big things we have, the things that perhaps are easy to take for granted. Think about losing those things and then getting them back. How happy you’d be to have them back. Yes, I’d like a pool in my backyard and the ability to travel whenever I want – but that aside…

I am grateful for the smiles of strangers and the kisses of my kids. Grateful to be born of the most beautiful little island in the Caribbean Sea and for the blend of French and Spanish and Indian spices running through my genes. Grateful for the grasp of little fingers holding my hands, and as the song goes, for the skies of blue and clouds of white, each bright blessed day and dark sacred night. 

I am grateful for food. I have food, so much food, and a table in a house with a family to share it with. I may not be very good at cooking it like the Top Chefs or presenting it like Pinterest, but its edible. And considering there are SO MANY MILLIONS around the world suffering from malnutrition, well, there. There is yet another thing I am so abundantly grateful for – food. Especially when it’s Indian food. Or french fries. And mango of course (especially a good chow). 

And as oddball as it sounds, grateful for my overwhelming, color-coded, crazy schedule calendar hanging in the kitchen. Green for sports, red for music, blue for family events, other colors when I can’t find any of the other colors just mentioned. Because you know what that calendar gives me (besides the occasional agida at its madness), it gives me reason to pause and say “wow, we are LUCKY!”. I mean, school pictures and projects means my kids get to go to school, when so many do not because of illness or access or a million other reasons. A good school with great teachers and picture day and science fair and awards for being kind and respectful. They are learning and they are SAFE. And the flyers about activities tacked on and stuffed into this crazy calendar - we work hard to give them this wonderful life that fills up their days and gives them such joy. My work is rewarded with their goals on the soccer field, and home runs filled with pride. It’s music to my ears, literally, that we have a home where they can learn to play the piano each week. This busy calendar means their lives, OUR lives, are filled with things that are making their hearts bigger and brains smarter and body healthier. They have and we have things at our finger tips that so many around the world have to fight for each day – education and freedom.

I am grateful I get to be a grown up. Never mind the bills to pay and the errands to run. I got to grow up. Healthy and safe and now with my own family. I was spared childhood illness and had two parents that loved me. I got to play in the mud and watch Sunday morning cartoons, to swim after school, climb the cherry tree, and run down to my friends house to play. To have sleepovers and birthday parties and learn to read. I went to schools filled with good teachers and surrounded by great friends. I learned to act and write and paint. I got to hit all my milestones and through every stage of my childhood grew into another. I get to work as a grown up. So many do not. Not just work, but work with great organizations that do so much good. And now even to do it on a schedule that lets me be the best mom I want to be. So lucky to be the grown up I am today. So many don’t get this chance to be a grown up with lives lost every single day, every minute in fact, to violence or cancer or heart disease or accident. Whether it be luck, or caution or protection or divine intervention, I have lived a long and wonderful life. I mean really, I am FORTY For goodness sake. Grateful to be a grown up and for the chance to wake up every day and get older. 

Every magazine and television ad, catalog and television show – it’s never ending temptation to want more or better or different or new. But when I squeeze my eyes shut, or the magazines with the pretty things get eaten by the dog, well then all I see is how awesome everything is right in front my eyes, exactly as it is. Well, maybe not EXACTLY, the laundry should be put away and the dog hair is literally covering every single surface of my house. But, you get my drift. Pretty. Awesome. Life.

I am grateful for Facebook friends. Yes, a category all in itself. And gasp, yes I called out social media in my gratitude challenge. I assure you I do that in the least shallow was possible. Think about it – my work as mom, my work outside of mom, and I live a bajillion miles away from most of my friends. This online world is a daily lifeline to people I like and love and admire and miss from all over the world. How many of these 553 Facebook friends would give up a kidney for me, or speak at my funeral? Probably not most. But I still really like being connected to them. I may have met them in elementary school or through my big brother, perhaps we worked together 10 years ago or met in my old neighborhood park pushing babies in strollers. To have a chance to see and share in and enjoy the accomplishments of all the people I’ve met along my almost four (gasp) decades of life is pretty awesome. To be just one more person to offer kind words during their struggles is an honor. Plus, I get lots of good travel-book-recipe-photography and other ideas from them.

I am grateful for old friends. You know the ones, the ones that take you back, way back, and have stuck with you ever since. The ones whose parents never even blinked an eye when I climbed the fence at the smell of their Sunday BBQ or questioned that I was sleeping over (again). Old friends who know me inside out, and have known (and loved) every version of me that I have ever been. Distance has never dampened our friendship and their closeness will always be a comfort. The ones who inspire insanely exciting reunions filled with shrieks of joy and running-jumping full body hugs that squeeze you till you squeak They can tell the BEST (and worst) stories about me. Our inside jokes will NEVER stop being funny. There is photographic evidence of decades of hair and fashion faux pas experienced together. They were by my side as I graduated and when I’ve had my heart broken. Calculating how long I have know them blows my mind (and reminds me how old I am). There is pride in each other’s accomplishments and support (or laughter) for each other’s downfalls. We can pick up right where we left off, even if hundreds of miles, states, oceans, continents and decades have separated us. We don’t just care about each other, we care about each other’s kids and husbands and friends and lives and health issues and choices and opinions. I’m grateful to have seen their roots and for them to have seen mine. Thank you for letting me be braggy, PMSy, funny, silly and everything else I’ve ever been – and wanting to be my friend anyway. Know that I will email, text, and use Facebook always but nothing will ever compare to hearing your voice and seeing your face at the same time. 

I am Grateful for new friends. Now understand that by new I mean in less than a decade (cuz I’m old like that). The ones I made in my life with kids. In my suburban years. In my little blue house on the corner of Hampton. Before I had kids, friendships were either those handed to me (kids of my parents, neighbors, classmates) or friends chosen and all about me (who I wanted to hang out with, had stuff in common with, could depend on for a good time). Enter kids. Though this new group is not made up entirely of “mom friends” well they are a glorious majority. My new friends may not know where Trinidad is, have ever had the pleasure of hearing me sing, or enjoy rum or afternoon tea – but these mom friends, friends who get it, get the hassle, struggles, privilege, triumphs and schedules of mom-hood; and make it easier for me just in their understanding, well that’s a pretty awesome group of friends. Like the moms I’ve met at the bus stop - new friends who will hopefully move into the old friends bucket with me as our kids grow up together. And the friends with babies – because I’m done making babies, and I really like to hold yours (then hand them back – thank you for the free birth control). And then there are the mom’s of my kid’s friends. You know the ones, the kids get along so well they can go off and play together and we are left to chat, sit , sip and breathe without a distraction - magic fairy dust of new friendships. And my book club friends who forced me out of my baby years reading sabbatical and brought me back to the wonder of words that were not just 20 point font and accompanied by drawings of rabbits. These book club broads will undoubtedly merge into my old friend bucket – I know all too well that though our kids will grow up and move out, our friendships will stay right where they started. 


So, THANK YOU, to everyone who has given me things and ways and reasons to be grateful and made me so VERY LUCKY. I have enough. More than enough. What a wonderful world indeed.