The Bright Shiny Light of Gratitude

This is one of those memories, 
So alive and current,
Right here, 
Right now,
In this present moment.

I remember where I’m sitting in the room.
The rickety folding chair squeaks beneath me,
Making me even more self-conscious than I already am.
I’m new to these 12 Step meetings.
I see myself chewing my lower lip into a state 
Of anxious discomfort.
Who are all these people?
Yet I know why I’m here.
There is nowhere else to be.

Literally.  Nowhere.

Now that cool woman, who wears the sky-blue sparkly hoodie,
The one who always looks so comfortable,
She begins to speak.

I hear her words,
Her voice assured and level:

“And in the morning,
I thank my Higher Power for whatever might happen in that day.
And blah-blah-blah.”

Her voice trails off into a spiritual lingering, one I know I could never obtain.
I instantly and secretly hate her for that,
For her lingering,
Her annoying comfort,
Her damn comment which is stupid–!

Her words awaken me from some fuzzy emotional slumber.
I’m pissed.
Who does she think she is…
I fumed,
Silently, of course.
That’s ridiculous.
Gratitude for what hasn’t happened yet?
That’s—stupid.
What if shitty things happen?

I fume and fuss myself through the meeting.
Angry at her.
Angry at them.
Angry, perhaps, at myself?

Then, dear friends,
The miracle.

Somehow, it is not my idea,
But…

I see myself walking toward her after the meeting
She’s surrounded, of course,
By a bunch of spiritual groupies.
But I stay.
I wait,
Which is clearly
Another miracle.

This is the first time I have spoken to anybody before or after a meeting.

She turns to me,
Her eyes are green and frighteningly clear.
She is—cute, confusingly cute.

Miracle three,
I continue to stay 
And
I met her eyes.

I stammer,
Sweaty under my pea jacket,
Worn to hide my body from any
Potential visual intrusion from a 12 Step meeting.
See me,
Don’t see me.

Hi, I say once.
Then I say again,
Hi.
Shit, I’m a moron, I think.

Somehow, I find words.
I say, in a blabber of words:

“What did you say?
Did you say,
You THANK God for what hasn’t happened yet?
Did you say THAT?”

“Yes,” she says,
And continues talking.
I’m not able to hold onto her words
None of her logic,
Her explanation
Is landing.

But it is her YES
That I receive.

It is her YES
That lives with me.

I leave that meeting.

Miracle number 9,763,
I keep going,
The next day
And the next.

Somehow, I remember
Not her sparkling green eyes
(Yet here I am, decades later, talking about it, oops),

But I remembered her YES:

YES, to be grateful for the day that is coming.
YES, we don’t know what might happen.
YES, shitty things do happen.
YES, offering thanks before it unfolds.
YES, gratitude opens the door to humility.
YES, humility opens the door to Grace.
YES, gratitude for all.
YES, eventually.
YES, inevitably.

See, I thought my job as an “adult” (using the term loosely here)
Was to make sure no bad things happen,
To control reality so shit didn’t happen.
Good luck with that.

The YES comes with me.

I don’t know the time frame.
When it happened…
But eventually, I started to practice this.
I wrote a prayer.
I said it for years.
In the mornings,
For years.

Here it is:
Thank you for everything you are going to give me in this new day.  I know what you are going to give me is going to be exactly what I need to get closer to You and to get closer to those parts of me that are You.

And that’s what I did.
Eventually, as prayer practices do,
This prayer shifted.
This prayer flowed in.
It flowed out.

Yet
The YES remains.
~~~
I love this reading by Melody Beatty.  How exactly right is this:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It tuns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~~~
Dear Friends,

How do you practice gratitude?
There are dozens upon dozens of ways.

And it takes time, sometimes.
Looking at the world today,
I must look through the unraveling
To see that which is whole,
That which is Grace,
That which is Always.

Eventually.
Inevitably.
~~~
Time for music!
Here is a good one from Playing for Change.  
If you don’t know about their work, check them out.  https://playingforchange.com/   
Way cool, taking musicians from around the world,
And blending them into one song.

Here is a good one: