With Thanksgiving this past week, I’ve been thinking about “Gratitude.” A friend of mine posted a writing exercise on her newsletter and I decided to open up a spread on my bullet journal notebook, write the word, GRATITUDE, in big green loopy cursive letters, then fill the space with whatever pops up in my head. Surprisingly, doing this writing exercise actually helped me on Thanksgiving Day feel even more gratitude than I have in a long time. It helped plant seeds in my heart. The very act of writing things down, especially by hand, helped me start to extrapolate the broad vague concepts, such as “my health” into specific details, such as “lower blood sugar.” At one point, I started writing down words like “air” and “nature.” I began appreciating the little things, realizing there was so much in life to be thankful for. I started the exercise feeling numb and ho hum. But by the end, I prickled with excitement about all the positive reasons to stay alive. As a result, I began appreciating all the elements that make up a life.
Last night, I drank a little too much pinot noir and accidentally spilled the glass all over my gratitude page. But the words blurred into black images mixed with burgundy red, and even then, I was again surprised by the beauty that happens when we mess up, whether in life or on the page. And you know what? It felt just fine. That’s all I have to say for now.
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