Gratitude and Joy: Reliable Heat and A Child's Christmas in Wales

Gratitude and Joy: Day 12

I am grateful for:

Reliable Heat

It doesn't hang out below freezing too much where I live now, but we usually get a snap or two of below-freezing daytime highs each winter, and it is certainly cold enough from November through March that you'd know it if you didn't have a reliable source of heat. Like hot running water, this is something I don't think about much on any given day--it's cold in the house, turn the heat up a little. But in this moment, when I did just that, I'm reminded that not everyone has this luxury, and that it is a luxury indeed, just to push a button a couple of times and get warm air. I'm grateful that our circumstances allow us to keep warm and to not have to worry about how we're going to do so. 

I feel joy watching: 

A Child's Christmas in Wales

This 1987 TV movie adaptation of Dylan Thomas's short story about Christmas in early twentieth-century Wales has been a favorite of mine since childhood. Many of my family's in-jokes come from this film ("You're sure it isn't socks?"), and it's one of the handful of movies I watch every year instead of giving a skip every once in a while. Every moment of it is a delight and a joy.

Gratitude and Joy: Luthien and a Friendly Stranger

Gratitude and Joy: Day 11

I am grateful for:

Luthien
Luthien is the cat I adopted within weeks of moving into the first apartment I would live in alone. This was twelve years ago now. She was an adult cat then (though young), so now she's a cranky old bat. She's honestly harder to love than she used to be, what with all the medication she needs and the constant vocalizing, but love her I still do. I'm going to be crushed when she goes, so I try to remind myself as often as I can, while she's still with us, how much joy she has brought into my life (and still does, along with the frustrations) and how instrumental she was in my getting through grad school sane (ish).

I felt joy when:

A Stranger Was Friendly
Our neighborhood sees a fair amount of people going for family walks or walking their dogs. One lady comes here specially to walk because it is a quiet area and very pretty. I've seen her walking of an afternoon, usually on Sunday. We've exchanged greetings a few times, and one day--four or more months ago now--I was out with the dog and we stopped and chatted. She loved on the dog, and we spend a few nice minutes together. I hadn't seen her since, until yesterday. We didn't stop to chat this time, but we enthusiastically said hello to each other and she greeted my dog (who she's met once, remember) by name. How nice that was.

Gratitude and Joy: Kind Cashiers and The Hallelujah Chorus

Gratitude and Joy: Day 10

I am grateful for:

Kind Cashiers
The other day I picked up a few gift cards at the grocery store when I did my week's shopping. For whatever reason--maybe the cashier passed them to the bagger and he missed them or maybe she set them aside thinking I would put them in my purse and *I* missed them--I walked away without them. And then she noticed I didn't have them and chased me down to make sure I didn't walk way without the single most expensive thing I bought that day. Sometimes the little things are actually the big things, and I'm so grateful this woman saved me the inconvenience and expense of losing those gift cards.


I feel joy listening to:

"The Hallelujah Chorus"
They performed "The Hallelujah Chorus" as the encore at the Holiday Pops concert Friday night. Dang but I love "The Hallelujah Chorus." It is so majestic, so joyful, so so. It's one of those pieces that gives me that swelling emotion feeling that gets stuck in your throat. Also, when people actually know to stand up? Because tradition? It makes me feel connected to something bigger, just like the music does. If I had to describe joy, I don't think I could do better than to point to the feeling I get during those high, high notes in "The Hallelujah Chorus."

Gratitude and Joy: Podcasts and the RSO Holiday Pops Concert

Gratitude and Joy: Day 9

I am grateful for:

Podcasts
I debated with myself about whether this was a cheat since so many of the podcasts I listen to are part of the bookternet, and well, I already talked about that. But not all of the podcasts I listen to are about books, and what I get out of podcasts specifically isn't the same as what I get out of the bookternet generally, so here we are. Four years ago I had never listened to a podcast. Now I subscribe to a bunch, and I anticipate the days of the week based on which podcast drops on that day. My favorites are little daily treats, little highlights to my day, and they often help me get through my morning routine (and driving time) and prepare for the rest of the day. Like a favorite TV program or book, they become like friends I look forward to hanging out with once a week. In addition to entertaining me, they've also allowed me to easily expand my horizons in ways I might never have done without this format. I'm better informed about politics, science, and (definitely) the book world than I was before I started listening to them, and that's always a thing to be grateful for. 

I feel joyful at:

The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra Holiday Pops Concert
Like many local symphonies, ours has an annual pops concert in December devoted to Christmas music. We almost always go, and I can't express how much I love it. In addition to the orchestra, it always features several area choirs, and that may be part of why I love it so much. I was in choir from seventh grade through the end of college, and it was one of the single best things I ever did. I have great memories from those years, and I am always thrilled to see any choir perform. But the whole evening is always a delight: the symphony is excellent, the conductor is a hoot, and there's a bit at the end where the audience sings along through a medley of well-known carols and songs. This is the official start to the season for me, and it never fails to get me in the right spirit for Christmas.

Gratitude and Joy: My Physical Therapist and Snow

Gratitude and Joy: Day 8

I am grateful for:

My Physical Therapist
I've suffered headaches all my life. I have migraines, and I also get tension headaches. Six months ago or so my doctor suggested seeing a physical therapist to sort out the neck muscles that get cranky and give me those tension headaches (which, not a word of lie, you guys, are often worse than my migraines). And my physical therapist is amazing. The headaches have improved and my shoulders mostly hang out where they are supposed to now, rather than up around my ears. This was like a revelation. The first time I got in the pool to do some laps after I'd been working with her for a bit, I was like, "Oh. Oh! This is how shoulders are supposed to move." I'm so grateful that she is so good at what she does and that I have been able to see her. And, I'll just say, if you hang out at a desk for 10+ hours a day 5+ days a week, make sure you're taking care of your supporting muscles. Because if you don't, they'll eat you, you know.

I feel joyful around:

Snow
So, I don't like having to drive in it or shift it about so that I can drive in it, but beyond that, I love the stuff. Nothing is quite as magical as snow softly falling from the sky and turning everything crisp and white and sparkly. Seriously, it me.

Gratitude and Joy: History and Scottish Christmas Album

Gratitude and Joy: Day 7

I am grateful for:

History
I personally find history fascinating and entertaining, but what I'm grateful for is our access to it. I've been thinking about two different quotations lately: "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (Winston Churchill, and literally every other person interested in history ever, probably) and "May you live in an interesting age" (probably not an ancient Chinese curse). We certainly seem to be living in an interesting age, and one that is marking the rapid and increasing loss of our remaining elders who have meaningful memories of the greatest upheaval in the western world in the 20th century. A human being in their late teens at the end of World War II is, if still living, near ninety now. Our access to the terror, the horror, and the lessons of WWII, the Holocaust, and their fallout is increasingly becoming limited to what history has left for us. Our ability to generate and record new primary materials about the events that still ripple through our world in the form of ideologies, borders, and still simmering disputes is passing away. In another decade, it will be fully gone. This is the nature of life, of time. Those who remember will always pass away. Thus it is forever incumbent upon us to value our access to the truth and to support continuing efforts to record history as truthfully as we can. Of course historical accounts are always biased, but I am grateful to live in a time and a place where it is usually easy enough to identify those biases and avoid material that contains outright lies. May we remember that this is by no means guaranteed and fight for this kind of freedom to continue to be the case. 


I feel joyful listening to:

A Scottish Christmas
My grandparents gave me this Christmas album some twenty years ago, and it has remained one of my absolute favorites since then. I have always felt a strong affinity for my Scottish ancestry, and I'm one of those people who feels that sharp combination of joy and pride that almost turns into weeping at the sound of the bagpipes. If you are one of those folks who finds them screechy, I don't want to hear about it, but I will warn you that you aren't going to like this, one of my favorite pieces on the album. 

Gratitude and Joy: Hot Running Water and O Come O Come Emmanuel

Gratitude and Joy, Day 6

I am grateful for: 

Hot, Running Water
Yesterday, having no where to be and being somewhat behind my time in the a.m., through one thing and another, I didn't shower until late in the afternoon. So by the time I got around to it, it felt like a real blessing to be able to wash away two days' worth of grime under a steady stream of hot water. Hot running water is one of those things I mostly take for granted--it's always there, and if it's not, it's because something is *wrong*--and it's easy to forget how lucky we are--within the world and within history--to have access to it with the twist of a knob. As someone with cranky sinuses and perpetually tight shoulder and neck muscles, I'm particularly grateful to be able to apply hot and steam to myself every morning, and not just because it helps me get clean. 

I feel joyful when I listen to:

"O Come O Come Emmanuel"
This plaintive Christmas hymns is one of my favorites. It never fails to give me the shivers. There's something elemental about these harmonies. This is a nice version. Close your eyes. Yes? Shivers.