Gratitude

I’m working on gratitude again, as I do whenever I drift away and find myself going over all the stuff I could think of as all bad rather than just not what I had in mind. Then I put something else in mind. And so on.

I’m grateful to Comcast for only doubling my bill without warning. I’m grateful to the Chico City Council for not being even more timid, petty and fearful. I’m grateful that Ken Grossman isn’t Monty Burns.

I thank the voters who killed Proposition 19, a thoroughly half-assed proposal. I voted for it so the goons would stop feeding the prison industry. At least this way the little guys will have a couple of years to adjust.

I’m grateful to all the people who don’t cut me off in traffic and for people who do what they promise.

I’m grateful that several times a day I actually remember to be right there where I am, consciously in my body, breathing and not thinking. That’s really good, and you’d think something that important would stick, but it doesn’t.

Several other times a day, in spite of my tendency to head for the nearest rut, I remember that I may not have anything to do with what happens next, but I do have a say about what’s happening now, which as it happens is all I need. I’m grateful for that.

I’m grateful that I have a practice, a direction, so now I know when I’m off course, and I can make a correction, though maybe not right away. And then I remember hearing somewhere that my current direction is always the right one, so there’s nothing to fix and that’s how I end up in a rut.

I’m grateful that I don’t have the faith in words I used to have. I’ve read and heard a lot of words and arranged a few myself, and words don’t amount to much, really. They’re just sounds that represent thoughts that may or may not represent something else. So now I don’t expect words to make sense necessarily, and when one set of words seems to contradict another set I know that’s the way it is always, thank goodness.

I’m profoundly grateful to my family for tolerating me. And thanks to my friends.

I’m so grateful that I can finally recognize my ego, I can’t begin to tell you. I thought that Anthony Peyton Porter, blah blah, was the whole shebang, but that’s just my ego, which is kinda funny now. It doesn’t seem to mind me laughing at it, which is just as well, since I don’t think I’m alone.