Access to Gratitude

Gratitude counters despair. It’s true. I’ve experienced it. It is simply so much easier to access gratitude when life is going well. You can appreciate the sun on your face, a baby’s laugh, your feet on pavement, and the fresh air in your lungs. When the winter is long and the weight of whatever you carry, be it anxiety, COVID, depression, or a chronic illness, pushes you down, gratitude can feel scarce and out of reach. It certainly does for me. The thing is that sometimes I have to reach farther for it than I did before, and often cannot find the energy. I have found that if I can’t be mindful and positive enough to generate my own gratitude, I can draw on others' experiences, art, or writing. Or instead of reaching farther, I reach back. Back to a wonderful memory, a poem, or a piece that I wrote when I was in that state of mind.

Here is a poem that brings me back:

Family

We gather around the dining room table

In chairs my great-grandmother embroidered

A unique, detailed bouquet on each

Our choice of pasta is rigatoni

smothered in my Sunday sauce.

Some have hearty meatballs, some sausage, some hot, some sweet

in our shallow white bowls, billowing steam

I watch the spun, spiral parmesan cheese falling,

and melting into the abundant red sauce

covering just a few noodles

but I always go back for three or four more

dipping the now gooey tubes into the pot.

They think the secret ingredient is a bit of dark brown sugar,

but I know it’s love.