small gratitudes.

no need to explain the necessity to feel true gratitude for life every day…. so here’s my short list for the past twenty four hours:

• getting to wake up (twice) with a creaky neck
• reuniting with Sallie, my mustard colored road bike.
• throwing metal in the dumpster, hearing that creaky crunching angry noise
• having three vacuums and a dust buster fail me. then picking off hundreds of dustballs by hand.
• getting to go to both laughing planet AND soma, then realizing (now) how ironic it is that SomA (meaning BODY) was my favorite place and secret hideout at IU while I went to school there. SYNCHRONICITY
• getting LOST at 3 am driving in the middle of GARY, indiana.  google it. talk about adrenaline rush.  i think i locked my doors four times.
• taking three wrong exits and laughing about it.
• belting out “You Raise Me Up”, while simultaneously almost crying for high school choir.
• giving myself good advice, as in yes, i talked to myself. (this is RARE)
• conducting Josh Groban’s orchestra from the driver’s seat
• peeing in a cup so my mom wouldn’t yell at me for getting out at a rest stop at 2 am (also, rare)
• gaining new wisdom from a John Mayer song I’ve heard hundreds of times
• ginger tea
• witnessing a daughter hold her elderly mother’s back and whisper the flavors of ice cream to her quietly, in jiffy treet
• giving a lady money for bus fare, and then walking back,  asking to take her portrait.  she smiles and said, yes, i’d love that!
• driving through Chicago during a lightning storm
• barely avoiding a flock of deer, herded by a Buck on the highway
• pulling up in my driveway to find a fawn and her mom, on a field trip.
• remembering randomly how my dad would stop at gas stations on road trips when he was really tired just to get some “svittles”
• svittles (sv-ITT-uhls) : small packages of unhealthy food items Ron buys, including, but not limited to:  peanuts in the shell, Oke-Doke Popcorn, Fritos, Oreos, sleeves of Saltine Crackers, peach Snapple.  usually consumed from 1am-5am, on a highway near you.
• James Taylor
• free mini fridge, microwave, toaster oven, dvd player, slip ‘n’ slide, flashlight, sleeping bag, and cleaning supplies.  i could open a daycare!
• thai curry lunch WITH fruit salsa, new addition
• dark chocolate espresso beans (OH dear)
• stepping out of my car into a GIANT puddle, which lead to a large temptation to puddle splash against my body’s will

and now, falling asleep to a thunderstorm.  i only write these things out to remind myself how important it is to truly stay present to oneself, every day.  it is the divine in the mundane that sustains me.  i asked myself that question earlier today and had to think about it. this is truly it— when everything else, everything else that is a FORM, or a practice,  or structure, or safety net, collapses— i can still be present for this…the divine in the mundane.