#365Gratitude Day 357: Almost Seeing Family On Christmas

Yesterday on my way home from work, I got an emergency text message from my cousin, S., who lives in California. 

Her sister, my cousin A., was flying from Vermont, through DC, on her way to California for the holidays. 

But as S. told me, the weather outside was frightful, and if I could go get her, it would be delightful.  There was a chance that on that connecting flight she might not show, so off to the airport I did go, I did go. 

I was doing a late night workout, so after I finished at the gym, I hopped in the car, and away I went. 

It was a good 40 minutes to the airport, and I spent the whole thing on the phone with my mom. 

She, in turn, was in a text group chat with my two cousins.  Fortunately, my cousin DID make her flight. Unfortunately for me, I only found out AFTER I got on the Dulles Toll Road, and was obligated to go to the airport anyhow.  After stopping to fill the car with gas and myself with hot chocolate I drove home, again on the phone the whole time with my mom.  She was super complimentary about the nice thing I did, and how awful it was that I had to drive home alone.

I didn't care though. I was grateful for even the chance to see her, and not getting to have it, so her trip worked out. ​

I had been meaning to find the time for a long conversation with my mom anyhow, so that worked out really nicely. 

#365Gratitude Day 356: Fixable Things

So yesterday I realized I was almost out of diapers, and pull-ups were running low, too.  For someone who wears one or the other to bed almost nightly, that's a problem.

Luckily, it was a fixable problem.

At one point in my day I got on my trusty smartphone, pulled up Bambino Diapers website, and placed my order.  I was fortunate enough to have a nice big PayPal balance too, because a friend had recently paid me for splitting a hotel room recently, effectively cutting the purchase right in half.  Awesome.

Until I noticed that PayPal still had my old address on my profile, and that was where Bambino was going to ship everything.

I noticed this just before I got on the road home, during a rainy commute in the dark.  At one point, flipped out that they would ship it and it would be a mess, I pulled over, got on the website, and mailed them to fix it.  Then when I got home, I mailed them again, and they quickly mailed me back, letting me know they'd taken care of it.  I also fixed my PayPal profile too.  Whew!

Later, as I was getting ready for bed (yes, putting on a pull-up, sheesh.), I got to thinking about the whole episode.  People (this includes me) often vastly overestimate how badly a mistake is going to screw up their life.  We panic.  Fear-based visions fill our heads with how absolutely terrible something is going to work out.  

But it's kind of bullshit, really.  The truth is, we have almost no idea about how things are going to turn out.  What looks like a mistake right now might actually turn out to be an incredible positive later on.  We waste a lot of energy when we flip out.  That's not to say we shouldn't flip out (I'm no fan of "should".)  It's human to lose our cool.  But we do have a choice for how long we perpetuate that tailspin.

On a long car ride the other day I was talking with a friend about that which is necessity.  What I mean by that is those things which we are obligated to do or experience, and have utterly no choice about.  After much contemplation on the subject, I've identified just three inescapable necessities so far:

1. Existence
   We were born. We exist. There's no arguing it, nor fighting it.
2. Aging
   We age. Our feelings about it, resistance to it, embracing of it, are irrelevant. We're carried upon our aging like twigs on the surface of a river.
3. Death
   Eventually, like all living things, we die. Period. I know, cheery, right?

But actually, it IS kind of cheery.  Once you recognize that these three things are inescapable, everything else just becomes, well, optional.  Broken things aren't broken forever, because there is no forever.  

Once you've got that idea under your belt, then you can mindfully try to fix what you can, to the best of your ability.  Embracing necessity doesn't condemn you - it makes you flexible, supple.  It gives you a lot of options.

I'm grateful for that.

#365Gratitude Day 355: Coming home to a good snuggling

Yesterday I came home from a trip I had taken to visit my (insert unique relationship descriptor here), Maya.  I was down in North Carolina, so it took several hours by car to come home.  It wasn't too arduous a trip.  For a good chunk of it I listened to a great audiobook, Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings, and for another good chunk had a long chatty phone call with my friend Matti.  

But by the time I got home, it was dark, and I was tired, and I was very ready for a good cuddling.

Which I got, both from Missy, and from Yang.

It was lovely.

#365Gratitude Day 354: Nicknames

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" says Romeo to Juliet in the play of the same name.

I'm not sure I agree, though.  I have a complicated relationship with the Naming of Things™.  

Taoism refers to names as ming, and views them as a necessary, yet limited tool.  Take the word water.  "Water" isn't water, it's just a series of sounds.  The feeling of rain on your face, the smell of the ocean, floating in a lake, or chugging down a cold glass of it, on a hot day all those are more water than "water".  

What's more, naming often  implies a kind of judgment.  Am I tall?  Compared to my friend Maya, yes, very much so.  Enough so that when we have danced together at weddings, she's had to stand on a chair.  (It's fun.)  Compared to say the Washington Monument though, I'm not very tall at all.  

It sounds like naming is a shoddy thing at best.

However, as both an author, and a Very Silly Person™,  there's another side to all this.  I LOVE words, and names.  I love seeing aspects of things and calling attention to them, or playing around with the sweet sounds of something's name.  I often give people nicknames, or somehow twist language to make it my own.  

I especially love it when this is done to me, and for me.  My love of sharks is well known.  Over the years friends of mine have called me Sharkman, Mr. Sharkman, Shark Boy, Fish Boy, all sorts of endless variations on that theme.  Just this past weekend, my friend Michael sent a text to Maya, whom I was visiting, to tell her that the "Heart of Sharkness" was almost there.

It just tickled me.  Such a sweet, loving thing.

#365Gratitude Day 353: Momentary Beauty

This morning I got to the train station extra early, because I wanted to take a much earlier train. 

As I got to the rail station trestle I couldn't help but notice the moon shining away in the pre-dawn sky.  

It was so beautiful that I had to stop and take a picture. Sadly the picture can't do justice to the moment. 

The air was so crisp, and still.  There was a special quiet too, the heavy, thick of early morning, only slightly disturbed by the shuffling and rushing footfalls of people making their way over to the platform.  

There's a sort of poetry, or maybe singing the world around us makes if we stop and listen for it.