#365Gratitude Day 319: My love affair with water

Ever since I was a child, I've had a thing for water.  I love the ocean, love to be in water, love to swim.  I'm a scuba diver, and have a deep abiding love for marine life, especially sharks.

About a decade ago I became a Taoist, and realized that my connection with water was also a spiritual one.  

Alan Watts has said that we are a function of the whole universe in much the same way as any one wave is a function of the whole ocean. 

The Tao te Ching has much to say on this too.   

8 

The supreme good is like water,  

which nourishes all things without trying to.

It is content with the low places that people disdain. 

Thus it is like the Tao. 

In dwelling, live close to the ground. 

In thinking, keep to the simple. 

In conflict, be fair and generous. 

In governing, don't try to control. 

In work, do what you enjoy. 

In family life, be completely present. 

When you are content to be simply yourself

and don't compare or compete,  

everybody will respect you. 

I feel all these lessons so deeply.  Water is yielding, yet at the same time, the most powerful thing on the planet.  It carves valleys, grants life, changes the shape of things.  

I am grateful for water's example, guidance, and gifts to me, each moment of each day. 

#365Gratitude Day 318: Being a grownup

Yesterday as I was on my way to work, I was busy.  What was I doing?

- Paying my utility bills, and my wife's car tax (It's a Virginia thing) 

- Booking a trip to NYC to take my wife to see The Lion King on Broadway for our wedding anniversary

- Paying a credit card bill

- Updating my to-do list

- Doing some research for a book I'm writing

- Investigating a rather kick-ass present for my friend Shokolada for his birthday.   (In a related note, he runs pretty much the very-best-site-on-the-internet for messy dessert play.  For serious, check it out.)

As I got off the train, after having done all that, I was feeling quite chuffed about getting everything done, but then it also struck me that I'm both very responsible, and that it feels really damn good.  

I pay my bills on time, most of the time.  I regularly save money into a savings account.  I have reasonable savings, and can often plan for and deal with sudden emergencies.  Generally, when life's little slot machine comes up with lemons, I'm able to deal with the unsavory jackpot without too much consternation. 

I once heard someone say that being a grownup means making your bed, even though no one can see you do it, and not needing a pat on the back for it.  Sure, that's true.  But, you know what, there's a missing piece to that saying.  It feels great to have responsibility and to tend to it handily.  I'm grateful that every day I'm alive, I'm a little bit better about doing the thing that is being a grownup. 

#365Gratitude Day 317: Limited Reflection

Last night Missy & I braved the wet, cold dark to go to a last minute Ingress build in Old Town Alexandria. 

A build is an event where you and your fellow faction members take over a series of portals and turn them into the opposing faction's, so you can farm gear from them. 

You do this by repeatedly walking around them, and hacking them. Last night that worked out to be about 2.5 miles worth of walking. 

By the time we were done, we were wet, cold, and tired. 

We got in the car and headed for home. At one point, this very aggressive driver got behind me, and had his brights on.  It was very distracting, and really hurt my eyes.

Because of the flow of traffic, I couldn't change lanes to get away from him.  For a few minutes it was really distressing. 

I reached up, and flipped the little change-perspective knob on my rear view mirror. 

 Instantly it blunted his lights, and I felt better.  

Funny thing was nothing had really changed. He was still back there, crowding me.  But I took what steps I could to limit how much he could mess with me, and then promptly did my best to, without anger, get out of his way. I was calm, and not afraid. 

Shortly after that, traffic opened up and he shot into the other lane, and rocketed past me. 

I was grateful to see him go. Today, I'm glad he was behind me, and that that whole incident is behind me. 

#365Gratitude Day 316: 3 Days Worth of Cracked Cookies

When I was a kid, I was really fussy.  My mom tells me that I hated to have a messy face, wouldn't wear mismatched pajama tops and bottoms, and most crazily of all, refused to eat cookies if they had cracks in them!

I know, what was I, insane?!

Really, it was just that I was a perfectionist.  Which, for some things, I still am, but for others, I've learned to be more lax.

Anyhow, this morning, I was catching up my blog when I had the mad notion that I should just double-check that I had the current day number correct.

I didn't.  Somewhere along the way, I lost 3 days.  Today is the 316th day of the year.  

For a moment, I got really annoyed.  I went back in my blog entries, about a month, trying to find wherever-it-was that I'd somehow goofed things up.  

Then I realized that it didn't matter.  This is a blog, a sort of mental experiment, about which I'm accountable to myself, and not anyone or anything else.  What's more, there's a whole eastern aesthetic in Japanese art called wabi-sabi which is exactly about embracing imperfections as a sort of beauty.  The cracks in the cookie don't make it bad - they make it unique.  The three days missing from this practice of mine are much the same.

When I first started doing this project, I was doing it on twitter and Facebook.  Then I ditched Facebook, and started this blog.  Now I'm regularly posting here, updating twitter and google+ too.  Somewhere in all that mishmash, I lost 3 days.

It's okay.

I've actually come to love writing here at my blog, where I can really let loose when I feel like it. Plus, I love the fact that it's easy for me to go back many days and re-read.  I've already decided that I need to do this gratitude thing again, next year.  Losing the three days, that just makes it even more clear to me.

Next year, I'll try to NOT miss or lose any days.  I like to think of it as refining my blog-cookie making technique.  This year's batch has three cracks in it.

Still tastes pretty good.

#365Gratitude Day 315: Crying at the movies

Yesterday Missy and I went to see Big Hero 6, the new Disney animated movie, based on a not-very-well-known Marvel comic book.

It's about a 14 year old robotics genius, whose older brother dies under mysterious circumstances, and what he does about it.  It's also a superhero origin story.  It's appropriately emotionally moving in all the right places, with all the right beats.  Sometimes it's funny, sometimes sad. often exciting.  It's a great movie.

Missy and I both were swept up in the emotions of the story, together, at all the right places.  I love that we do that, and do it, together.