Be Conscious of Your Treasures

In the U.S., it is the day after Thanksgiving, a reminder to be thankful every day, not just the third Thursday in November. I have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving, which my friend Victor calls “Thanksgrieving,” as evidenced by my Thanksgrieving Haiku:

So there’s that. But I do love the idea of being thankful, divorced from the very real white supremacy that underscores the day and the whitewashing the holiday has been given.

Each day I am prompted to write three things I am grateful for in my journal and inevitably my list includes people I am thankful for having in my life, and something from nature–the way the sky looks at dawn, the clouds that look like animals, the colors of moss. The wall of portraits in this photo will give you some idea of my dearest treasures.

Fifteen years ago, I wrote an essay about treasures that I hope you might enjoy as you recover from the busy-ness that is Thanksgiving. I was recovering from an ankle injury at the time, and the mention of “stems” refers to crutches:

“The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.” – John E. Southard

In the U.S., this week marks our Thanksgiving holiday. A vegetarian, there will be no turkey on my table, but plenty of that congealed cranberry sauce from a can, the kind that retains the can imprint, those rippled rings of can-ness, the kind unadulterated by whole berries, just that smooth oasis of jiggle, whole slices of jell, a metal can full of love. I am addicted to it.

Sure, I can indulge in the more sophisticated whole berry route when required, and I’ve even made some whole berry sauce in a few weak moments, but Mr Brilliant knows the real way to my heart is a simple 16 oz. can of the jellied stuff. Slicing it is so peculiarly satisfying, like I am a renowned cranberry surgeon, precise in my measurements between ring lines, adept at sliding the tube out whole, without dings or divets to mar the slick surface, then dissecting it with impunity, a veritable Christiaan Barnard or Francis Robicsek of jellied. But perhaps that is enough about cranberry sauce.

I’m thinking we’ll add corn pudding, some veggie stuffing, perhaps a veggie roast or Tofurky just because I love to say the name of it, some green beans, whatever else I can cook on stems or while on a couch with my ankle higher than my heart, a big pie with a homemade crust appropriately bought from the Sisters McMullen Bakery since I consider their home my home when such an equation meets my unbaking needs.

As I prepare for this holiday, it occurs to me that the center of it ought to be thankfulness. Is it? Or does the day simply mean football (and, seriously, who cares about that since Johnny U stopped playing…) and Tryptophan turkey comas and pre-holiday sales and Santa anticipation? What if we all revisited thankfulness instead?

A few years ago, my friend Lee and I each started writing a gratitude journal each night, a brief listing of 5 things we were grateful for that day. It transformed days into happiness-seeking events—we looked for things to be grateful for, then listed them each night. Sunsets became fodder for listing, as did a perfect latte, or even an imperfect one. Rain wasn’t an inconvenience, but a giver of life in this system of gratitude.

I realized in this process that I see what I am looking for. When I was selected as a teenager to go as an AFS Exchange Student to Sri Lanka, for example, I had never, ever, ever heard of that country. But in the months before I left for this new adventure, I saw the words “Sri Lanka” everywhere – where we place our attention is where things surface. If I am looking for things to complain about, I will find them. If I am looking for things to be grateful for, those will emerge.

It is this spirit of gratitude that I want to embody this Thanksgiving. I think it changes everything. And just as it is easy to love lovable people and harder to love unlovable ones, I believe it is easy to be thankful for the good things in life: it is much harder to reframe life’s difficulties. But that’s where the payoff comes.

In such a world of thanksgiving, a death becomes a new way of living in relationship, a loss of income becomes an opportunity to follow your real desire line, a broken heart becomes a way into deep emotion. Let me try: Traveling too much…allows me to meet amazing people like Yaron and the magical man named David who I met on a small regional jet from Cincinnati one fine day. Walking on stems for six months…is teaching me to ask others for help, one of my hardest lessons. Tiny cash flow problems (not that I know anything about this, but I’ve read about it)…enhance my creativity. Not yet having enough work to sustain my new business (again, I’ve just read about it)…allows me the time to write the Great American Novel. When I got fitted for my 110-pound fracture boot recently, I must have looked despondent on the ride home. “Look on the bright side,” Mr. Brilliant piped up, ignoring my Evil Sideways Glance, “when you stopped your fall with your hands, you could have broken both wrists.” It made me laugh, this sudden reframing.

David-of-that-chance-airplane-meeting recently wrote that what we are left with in this world is what we can do for each other—I was struck by the beauty of his statement. Are we doing enough for one another? Are we thanking people for what they are doing?

Years ago now, too many years ago, one of my favorite professors died. It was a death that was a year in the making and I took that year to thank him, to say in certain (not uncertain) terms what he had taught me, what I had learned from him, how much – how utterly and completely much – I had loved knowing him and laughing with him over the years since college. I told him how I would always remember him. His letters to me and mine to him over that year buoyed us both; it felt good to say thanks rather than to wait until he couldn’t hear it. He was a treasure I will never let go of. Who are your treasures? Do they know it?

This Thanksgiving, I want to get even with those who have helped me, some in ways they could not know, people who have reframed things for me, caught me when I was falling, taught me things, even those few who have shown me who I don’t want to be, who I’m glad I’m not, even. Who’s on your list?