Grateful

Gratitude is a word I sometimes feel reluctant to use nowadays, so laden it has become with should and ought and smug self-help-ishness and 10 easy ways to feel great and all the various annoying ways of condensing life and suffering and joy into a publishable set of platitudes.  But sometimes it just fits, and the feeling wells up spontaneously and I want to set it down in words, to remember the way things go well and work and are beautiful.  So here's my present list (numerical only because I prefer the look of numbers to bullets.)

1) The response to the recent fire on our mountain.  Within probably half an hour of the lightning strike, the sky was swarming with fire-fighting aircraft, and three days later, a skilled team of fire-fighters on the ground had the blaze 100% contained.  The day it began, Whistler-Blackcomb staff had evacuated all tourists from both mountains due to the risk of lightning before the strike that ignited the fire. Perhaps because of my own professional background in managing life and death, I feel compelled to stand up and cheer when plans and systems and contingencies are implemented at exactly the right time, and random disaster tidily averted. Our First World lives are so heavily insulated from suffering that the public response to Nature's caprice is more often than not to complain and pick and scrutinize for blame, and it seems to me that Thank-You and Bravo! are too easily forgotten.  (Huh.  As I was typing that, another fire was discovered on Blackcomb, apparently smoldering undetected from the same lightning storm, then flaring up. Seems to be largely under control this morning, thanks once again, to prompt management.)

2) Puppy.  She fits into our family like a hand in a glove.  (A glove with just a smidge of negative ease, the little finger thoughtfully seated 1/4 inch below the rest, and all digits knit to the exact length of the wearer. That good.) I've got some thoughts percolating about the parallels between child-rearing and puppy-raising and the intriguing opportunity to teach my children the principles of leadership that go into "parenting" a dependent creature... but that deserves a post of its own. I'm falling in love with her greyhound-ness - the silky warm body that drapes across me with the languid flexibility of a cat, her extravagant and exclusive affection for her family, her sensitive and responsive nature reflected in those otherworldly eyes...  Yup. Good dog. (I'm considering starting a Flickr 365 project for her - what do you think?)

3) Needs answered in a timely and delightful fashion.  An unexpectedly great market day just as the bank account looked dire, chance mention of a one day sale resulting in the exact right school backpack for my daughter.  I'm not one to troll the sales racks, and have become exponentially less consumer-oriented over the last few years, but there is singular pleasure in a functional item beautifully made and perfectly suited to its purpose, and when it shows up at the time of need, for a price we can afford, it feels like a gift to be celebrated. 

4) Water. AC would be nice, but we have an ample supply of clean, delicious tap water, lakes and pools to swim in, the capacity to make ice and keep our food cold - we do have everything we need, you know?  Plus,it is forecast to rain this week!

5) Food. Who needs "entertainment" when you can cook?  Fresh local ingredients, a rich array of colours, tastes, and textures - I love that the simple act of eating is a daily opportunity for delight and adventure. (In this case, grilled pizza with goat cheese, Schinkenspeck (cheaper than Prosciutto), thinly sliced plums, and arugula, drizzled with olive oil and sprinked with coarse salt and cracked pepper).

There's more, of course - wool, kids, husband, cat, chocolate, community.... but this is what's at the top of my brain right now.

I leave you with a recent bit of sky... taken a day or two before our valley filled up with smoke:

Comments

[Gillian]

Good post!

[Anne B.]

I think those crazy clouds headed out to Alberta after! We were all happy to hear the fires were put out promptly, and that everything is safe and secure.

[Thistledown]

Wonderful!

[Sheila]

Congratulations on a great market day. We were licking our lips over the pizza. How nice to have some one say thank you for a job well done. We hope ALL the fires will soon be contained.

[Lorette]

Funny, I think we're doing pizza on the grill tonight! There was an article in Sunset mag recently about how to do this.
And the miracle of water. It's still just a wonder to me that we have as much clean water as we do, anytime we want. A large part of the world's population lives without that luxury.

[Cookie]

What a wonderful post.

[Vicki]

That sky -- those clouds -- are amazing!! Thanks for sharing. My sky has been lovely this summer, but lacking drama -- which means no tornado sirens and that's good.