“You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
-G.K. Chesterton
With many thanks to Hilary, for pointing me to these beautiful lines. Perfect timing given that gratitude has been very much on my mind lately.
I went to New York for work last Friday. It was a gray, rainy morning, dense with fog, and I sat in my seat on the airplane looking out of the small oval window stressing out about getting home that afternoon. I have enormous travel anxiety: not about safety while flying, but about weather. I fear- with an irrational ferocity – flights being delayed and canceled, not being able to get where I want to go (usually, home).
And then the plane lifted off, and we arced upward. Raindrops streaked down the windows at an angle that spoke of our steep ascent. It was gray and dark outside. And then, suddenly, full sunshine. Clear as a bell, and there were blue skies visible out across a thick carpet of fluffy white clouds. We were above the clouds, and I thought simultaneously of my favorite painting by Georgia O’Keeffe and of a particularly charming observation by Whit last summer.
We were stuck in a holding pattern above Laguardia for a while, but I was not bothered by it. I was transfixed by the clarity outside my window, by the simple, powerful truth that there is always blue sky somewhere. Above, below, or through the clouds. I have noted before that emotions are just clouds sliding across the sky of my mind, but while I find this metaphor poetic the truth is I often struggle to remember it.
Every time I am online in an airplane I vow to retain a sense of wonder about such a miracle. This time, I also swore to myself that I will try harder to keep the clouds – literal or metaphorical – in perspective.
About a month ago I fell when I was running. I’ve done this before, and have written often of my clumsiness. This was a real fall, though, and I caught myself with my right hand. I scraped off a lot of skin on my palm; the entire heel of it was hanging off in a flap. I also scraped my hip (ripped my tights) and my elbow. After contemplating for a moment whether to finish my run (really! how insane am I?) I walked home. By the time I got home my shirt was covered in blood where I’d been cradling my hand. My family was still sleeping so I washed it off myself, gritted my teeth, and went about my day. With some extra-large band-aids, lots of neosporin, and about a month, I am almost all healed up now.
Looking at my palm, with its quarter-sized circle of new, pink flesh, I am reminded, again, of the resilience of the human body. And of the parallel resilience of our spirit. As I move into the middle of my life, with its unexpected challenges and astonishing joys, I am aware in a new way that the years are making their mark on my body. I know this is true for all of us, though the marks are from different reasons: accidents, childbearing, illness. Life leaves its mark. And, of course, it makes invisible but indelible marks on our spirits.
Some of these wounds heal relatively simply, into clean scars, like my hand. Others, much less so. I have specific injuries, both physical and emotional, that I am still tending to, and whose healing is slower, more complicated. But I keep pushing on my palm, feeling the slight twinge of sensitivity, remembering the sharp pain that was so recently there, trying to remind myself that we do heal. The process may be slow, the scar jagged and imperfect, but we heal.
… see how the flesh grows back across a wound, with great vehemence, more strong than the simple, untested surface before. There’s a name for it on horses, when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh, as all flesh is proud of its wounds, wears them as honors given out after battle, small triumphs pinned to the chest. – Jane Hirshfield
The world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places. – Ernest Hemingway
Last week I mentioned how tired I am lately, how quiet and reserved I’m feeling. That is manifesting in a lot of ways, and one of them is a real lack of inspiration to write. But I am determined to honor my commitment, here and elsewhere. So, a few things that I’m thinking about and doing these days.
May the grace of God be with you always, in your heart
May you know the truth inside you from the start
May you find the strength to know that you are part of something beautiful …
What are you listening to, reading, doing, thinking about, and feeling lately?
Both Grace and Whit recite the standard “now I lay me down to sleep …” prayer before bed. They usually add on some sentences which always, without exception, are a litany of “thank you”s. I have not coached them here. After all, as I’ve shared, Grace and Whit are the people who taught me that praying is saying thank you.
Last week I tucked Whit in and in the nightlight dim I asked him if he wanted to say his prayers. He looked up at me, clutching Beloved Monkey, and nodded. I looked at him expectantly.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Prayers, Whit?” I prodded in a whisper.
“Thank you. Just, thank you.” I smiled at him and felt my eyes fill with tears.
Meister Eckhart, of course, famously said it best: “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,” that would suffice.”
And “thank you” were my grandfather’s last words to my grandmother, as she died, in 1997. My family, those who came before and those who come after, two men who will never know each other yet are bound by shared bloodlines, both coming to the same conclusion. I left Whit’s room and sat at my desk and cried and cried. How can you be sorrowful and grateful at the same time? I was. In fact, I often am.
Thank you.