Tiny Bits of Gratitude

I sat down intending to write a post about gratitude, since Thanksgiving is coming up in a couple of days, here in the U.S.  And maybe I will write a post about it sometime, but not right now.  Right now, between work and writing and family responsibilities, it feels like my life is in a holding pattern, waiting to land or take off, and while I have a number of feelings about that, I can't honestly say gratitude is one of them.  At least, not yet.

"But," you might say, "Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for what we have and those we love, even if our lives aren't really where we want them to be right now."  And you'd be right, of course.  To me, the act of thanksgiving, or expressing gratitude, is a sacred act, whether it be expressed between myself and another person, or myself and the Universe.  To express it, I have to really feel it.  But right now, most of what I feel is tired.

That isn't to say I feel ungrateful - far from it.  The fact that I've been working longer hours this week means I get to see some truly breathtaking sunsets on my way home from work, like this one:



A Fort Worth sunset, as captured by my cell phone.

Beautiful sunsets give my attitude a lift, and I've been capturing some of them and posting them to my Flickr photostream.  I've had some fun experiences meeting other local writers for write-ins for NaNoWriMo, and some great evenings eating pizza and watching movies with my family.  And I've gotten a lot of great hugs from my son.  So I guess I could say I've been finding my gratitude in tiny bits this month, instead of in big things.

And maybe the tiny bits of gratitude are more important in the long run, anyway.

Well, I guess I wrote about gratitude after all.  Funny where the streams of our thoughts can take us.  For those who celebrate it, have a happy Thanksgiving.  And to everyone, everywhere, I wish you peace, prosperity, and happiness.