A friend told me this story a day or so ago. Her friend posted the following on Facebook: "Tell me something good that happened to you today (No matter how small it may seem)" Hope you can find it.”
She answered,
“I woke up.”
So much we take for granted, fail to appreciate, especially in the time of Covid. Starting with waking up, then fresh air. I’ve tutored Chinese UC post grad students, helping them learn conversational English. I asked one of them, “What are the three things you like best about America?” Number one, mentioned by a student from Beijing, was “clean air.” (FYI. The other two were “There’s no one here; the streets are empty”, and third, “the people are so friendly.”)
It hit a little closer to home last fall when a night of lightning strikes set thousands of acres of California on fire, culminating in the following sunrise.
My Christmas gift from my three kids was a Purple Air Sensor, which I’ve put outside, joining thousands of others who are participating in the Purple Air Map, revealing the air quality all across America at any given time. Instead of typing this I could be outside, enjoying fresh clean air. But I’m at my keyboard, giving thanks for 13.
I woke up, yes, and I was able to get out of bed, brew six cups of Peet’s Major Dickason dark roast coffee, raise the thermostat from 63 to 67, remove a small container of Horizon Organic Heavy Whipping Cream from the refrigerator, go outside, pick up the Sunday SF Chronicle, then return to a warm house with the first of two hot cups of coffee with cream, remove my iPad from its charger and promptly lose a game of Words With Friends. All common repeatable expreriences…until they’re not, until something unexpected strikes. For Jason’s friend Bill it was possibly a stroke or massive heart attack that fell him last week when he was riding a mountain bike with his eleven year old son, for my former neighbor and friend Bob Becklund, whose story in my blog appears two below this one, it was the accumulation of days and nights, about eighty-five years worth.
But I woke up.
I see myself as the man in the museum, staring at and trying to make sense, derive meaning, and learning to appreciate my canvas, my life.
I woke up, and for that I am grateful. I ate one of Jadyne’s freshly-baked cookies. I was able to walk four and a half-miles through the quiet streets and hills of Berkeley. I returned to a warm house, removed a small red Fuji apple from the refrigerator, a little Camembert Cheese from Costco, sliced the apple and the cheese, and ate them together in the warm house. I showered, washed my hair, put on freshly-cleaned clothes, and came upstairs where I began writing about all the quotidian events that make up my day, my life, and for the opportunity to do that, I am grateful. My friend Gail suggested that I keep a Gratitude Journal, entering a daily reason to be grateful. I haven’t done that, but after hearing “I woke up” I know I should.
Emily, a character in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”, visiting her twelfth birthday, asks the Stage Manager, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute.?” The Stage Manager responds “except for perhaps the saints and the poets, maybe.” By implication the characters do not seem to value or make an emotional connection to the daily activities of their rather ordinary lives. The inhabitants of Grovers Corners often lack any sense of wonder at what passes before their lives every day.
Which brings me back to the beginning. “I woke up.” And all that follows is a bonus.