Are you grateful for cliches like being grateful on Thanksgiving? I for one sure am!
Are you grateful for cliche writerly things (Morning Pages)? Me,
I'm grate ful for e. e. cu
mmin g
s
who wrote:
"may I be I" is the only prayer— not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong. To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
I'm grateful for quotes.
I'm also grateful for short jokes and puns, especially when least expected or not in the mood to be silly and you just can't help but laugh.
What else?
What 3 line jokes are you grateful for? (Please share them as I am most grateful for them)
I'm also grateful for 3-count dances like the waltz and the lindy-hop
And my son's baby teeth: They're so cute and disarming. I'm grateful for that.
I'm grateful I can be disarmed these days.
I'm really grateful that I can laugh at a lot of things and that I laugh a lot. I'm also extremely grateful for my hilarious Too Cute Face who does amazing impersonations and for being, well, too cute; for my dry quick witted ex-husband for being a best friend, an unsung genius, and a dad who loves his son from the depths of his being. I'm grateful that he is making a movie only "loosely based" on the facts of his life and I stand behind it 100% percent.
What do you want to be grateful for?
I wish i was more grateful for the sunrise since I see it now three days of the week when I take Jude to the bus.
So, here and now, what are you grateful for? Don't worry about telling me how grateful you are for friends and family and air and food and all the obvious stuff we can assume to be true from our own lives UNLESS you wish to show me the details of that gratitude by taking me there as though I am right there being grateful with you... (what kind of food? Where are you with family and friends? Doing what on your vacation, where?)
(I mean sure, I'm grateful for my breath and yoga and kirtan and experiencing the bliss of the moment if and when I can ever get myself calm and slow enough to simply be there in it, in the simple always giving space between the breath, where infinity is—a garden of peace with ever blowing stardust and floating hearts, where we remember the fluid, simple, real life lessons we learned in the womb and that we all long to get back to)...
In other words, we know. We're remember. We've all been in a womb.
Maybe you have something else to say about gratitude too. Maybe you are not grateful for anything and are tired of thinking you should be grateful. I know I get tired of feeling like I oughta be grateful for my curly hair or my "good" health or whatever else is anything just short of "bad."
Lastly I am grateful that you are reading this right here and now instead of the 14000 other cliche things about gratitude you could be reading...
and I'll be really grateful to read yours.... xoxoxoxo
PS: There's still time to get grateful with me and the gals at the upcoming Wild Writing Women! Winter Solstice WILD WOMEN WRITING RETREAT, SATURDAY DECEMBER 14, 2014, 10AM-4PM. We'll gather to write and remember our fire and sing our light on the page. Plus all the usual community, warm nourishing potluck joy, silly and sweetness. Register soon. Fills fast. $75
I am grateful for Rox, who gives us all these wonderful prompts to "think" about and "write" about, without judgement. I am also grateful for my gift of being able to "channel" words/messages in poetic form for everyone to read and share.
ReplyDeleteI will admit to being grateful for all the other things (family, friends, yoga, meditation, books, and more) but right now in this moment I am grateful I am able to communicate to others via this machine (a MAC computer with keyboard) which makes it so much easier than pen and paper, stamps and envelopes, and long delays to get a short message to someone---even though it is a machine.
Aw shucks, grateful for you too! Thanks so much for writing and channeling all of your beautiful poetry... what a gift. And yes, isn't quick communication amazing? I admit I do miss the old letter in the mail, but email is one of my greatest pleasures--the next best thing. And go MAC! Always grateful for my Little Pear, my MacBook Pro and all her predecessors... Thanks so much for writing! xoxox
DeleteI'm grateful for my son's smooth forehead and for the kissy lips my daughter makes at me. I'm grateful for the dawn simulator light my husband made for me that seems to be really helping me wake up in the morning. I'm grateful for my puppy who must get out for a walk even if I don't want to, but that I thoroughly enjoy once I get down the block. I'm grateful for that old guy with the cane that held the door open for me today and for the very enthusiastic server who spoke in funny dialects and sang bits of songs while he moved between tables. I'm grateful for netflix so the kids can watch while I write this and wait for my hubby to get home so I can crawl into bed and continue to fit whatever is infecting me and causing me to talk funny. I'm grateful to my husband who just suggested a warm bath and candles because that sounds so lovely. Toodle-oo. ADS
ReplyDeleteOMG, ADS... I'm grateful for your husband too! What a joy to read these little snapshots into your cozy family world...grateful to you for sharing. Please keep writing! Blisssss!
DeleteRox, I am so grateful for you! For words and books. For movies that help me understand myself or others or bigger concepts... Big Fish, Life of Pi, Lolita (the newer version, with Jeremy Irons- hubba, hubba!) for movies like The People vs Larry Flint or Private Parts about Howard Stern... I may not have watched these movies but Woody Harrelson caught my attention, so I listened... With Private Parts, all I saw was "Fart Man" giving a speech and I knew I had to see the movie- It's awesome, btw. More than that though? I am grateful for music. Words combined with melody... the right music makes me feel like I am one of the instruments, needed to make the song perfect...
ReplyDeleteI also love quotes! The best one I read recently said "telling someone not to feel sad because someone else has it worse is like telling someone not to feel happy because someone has it better." Yay for validation!
And jokes. Any joke. All jokes. I am one of those people who thinks that everything can be joked about. Life is so serious as it is and on the heels of so many feeling so offended by even the slightest "not PC" thing... Screw 'em. I'll laugh. Mostly I laugh at myself though. I'm hilarious... especially when I think I know what's going on!
So grateful to you too, Melanie. Thanks so much for coming into my writing world and sharing all your gifts, which I continue to enjoy so much. And, oh! Howard Stern...Woody Harrelson, Jeremy Irons, music.... the world is so full of so many great things and moments and laughs. Lets' make sure and exchange cheesy jokes soon!!! Happy Thanksgiving! xoxox
DeleteHi Roxanne, I remembered that Gloria Steinem said "Women suffer from terminal gratefulness. This is true in many cases, but there is a balance between thinking you deserve crumbs and wanting , wanting, wanting.
ReplyDeleteThat said I am grateful for the cliche, Count Your Blessings.
I am also grateful for you, your creative and sensitive self, for knowing you, for being able to keep in touch on this page with your wise and energy-filled words.
My list is long and I won't go on.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, to Jude, to Jude's DaDa, and to Too Cute.
Love,
P
In triteness and lightness, I am grateful that orange is an underutilized color – there’s not that much orange stuff, which pleases me, because I think orange is kind of lame. It makes me anxious, and inclined to do and say unpleasant things. Yeah, screw orange.
ReplyDeleteOn the more serious side of the continuum, I am grateful for good health, recovery from troubled times, functional & well adjusted kids, and meaningful work.
In the middle of the continuum, and to what I am feeling deeply at this moment, I will say I am grateful for good movies. I recently saw (and you should too), Kill Your Darlings. What a flick! You can check the trailer and reviews for professional insights – but here’s my take. The Beat Writers, including Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac, are learning their trade at Columbia University. They are developing their style. It’s about energy converted to creativity. These guys played hard and wrote hard, and within this frame, simply put, rejected the academic status quo – all this, with exhaustive conviction and passion. It’s the story of reaching and dreaming and producing, prolifically so. This story inspires - it reminds us that a state of pre-invention, through risk and gamble, can become ground breaking reality. The BEAT, ahhh, the beat, the beat, the beat…
So yes, I am grateful for a movie that moves me. The intensity and rawness that prompts me to imagine (yes, imagine!) being at Columbia in 1946, along side Allen and Jack. Perhaps I was – that though, is a topic for another day. Peace Rox, thank you for taking a moment to read. The Trees remain, anonymously Bare.
AOBT! So great to hear from you! Who are you anyway? You are sooooo familiar... your writing is so familiar... do I know you?
ReplyDeleteThat's okay. Don't tell me. I am grateful for anonymity!
I will always be grateful for movies, Hollywood gal that I am. I have to be careful though: my memoir is about how I was raised by movies and TV to the extent that I thought they were real life and therefore my "real life" ended up being fairly one dimensional for a loooooooong time. It's a loong story, which is why it's a (long) memoir, hopefully one I'll finish one of these long days...
Is your Kill your Darlings tough? Rough? Make you cry? I've become so sensitive in my old age. I did manage to see Enough Said over the weekend, which is about all I can handle these days. Popcorn was the best part, but it wasn't bad. It was "good" for Hollywood, I guess. But, oh, I love movies. Love how you wrote about the beat, the beat, the beat... I feel the passion! Please do write that imagined scene of 1946... I'll be reading, as always...
Okay: orange. But what about orange tabbies? An orange sunset? I know, I know, you're not dissin' orange, but still... But/and: do you find that orange being the same word for the fruit is as strange as I do? I mean, it's not like we call our apples "reds"... Anyway... that's a topic for another day.
Always a delight to hear from you AOBT,
Rox
Orange. Geez, ya got me on the kitten thing. Hard to dump an orange tabby off of one’s lap! And sunsets…, well yeah, orange sunsets are tough to beat, except when there’s a bit of red mixed in. And a distant pillowing of cumulonimbus. Whoa, that is an appealing scene!
DeleteI don’t find it as strange as you that orange is the name of the fruit. In fact, I do refer to apples as “reds”, unless of course I’m shopping for Granny Smith’s. In the spirit of minimalism and simplification I use the color of foods, as their names, rather than their names as their names. You should see one of my grocery lists:
- Blues
- Whites
- Indigos
- Azures
- Greens
- Yellows
- Silvers
This way, hitting the grocery store is always an adventure, and while the flavor compatibility held within my pantry is lacking – the list making sure is simple!
Kill Your Darlings was tough and rough, although I did not cry, and near as I can tell, was not even close to tearing up – the watching experience was a jolt of a sort. I left the theatre and wished to write and rhyme and wrangle with something or someone. Kind of like being a kid, and leaving a ballgame and wanting to go home and play catch. Immediately. Ya know? However, I will confess, being a card-carrying SNAG, I did cry at Broken Circle Breakdown – a lot in fact. That movie, while extremely well done, was tough to sit through without breaking out the tissue. Add it to your list, blame me if you don’t like it – a no lose proposition!
When does one get to read your memoir? An upbringing at the hands of movies and TV, and yet you state above, that you love movies, so maybe I’ll be able to read your memoir without a box of tissue handy..?
Anonymously, and of the Bare Trees. All day, every day.