Woe Christmas tree/Twinkle twinkle little starlet
A week or two ago, in the interests self cherishment and cheering up, I thought I'd have my little sparkly mistletoe tree out this year ... and ever since I've hoped I'd think of what to stand it on, as the piece of occasional furniture that does the job so well also very admirably makes a perch to rest on at the kitchen worktop when my back or leg is sore. Plan A involved processes that have proved beyond me, so I'm grateful for being philosophical about that. I give thanks for getting it down from the high shelf it's on anyway and (gradually...obviously) trying out and discarding plan B, measuring up and giving up on plan C, having a wild stab at spontaneous plan D, abandoning plan E as it involved more going up and down the big ladder to try out...and probably another trip shortly after as I'd a strong suspicion it would just look 'Look at me trying to have Christmas' lame, considering the pros and cons and preparation involved in plan F and not outright dissmissing it but deciding I couldn't decide on it until I'd seen how energy and time consuming they turned out to be... Until, at last, when it had all become the complete opposite of feeling cheering and cherished, it finally dawned on me the absolute perfect place for my little tree was back on the high shelf not giving me any more grief than I have already!
I'm grateful for learning that sometimes the strongest, wisest, most successful outcome of our best endeavours is to abandon them. Or postpone them anyhow... This time of year is such a button presser for me, as it is for lots of others of course, caught between the bombardment of images of its bright and shiny promise and the guilt trip of how we shouldn't fall for it, and how much suffering there is in the world... the people we miss, the missing out, the missing the mark. Failure to buy enough, cook enough, decorate and be decorative enough, party enough, provide enough, succeed enough and post to social media enough so the world can know you are, to love and be loved enough and show it and know it... gee, I'm grateful I already made such a pig's ear of all the above there was only putting up a small fake Christmas tree left to fail at!
So that was yesterday...and today? Um... Can I fail at being grateful today please? I mean I know you're all busy, you're not going to read it and know... But then if you're not available to read this, you're not available to grant me leave either so I guess I'd better carry on...
I give thanks for birdsong, for the colours of the sky and sea just after the sun went down. I give thanks for waking feeling more physically well and strong than I have done for a long time. I didn't know what to do with myself because I didn't want to be by myself and feel its possibilities wasted as it were. But of course that's what I had to do, so I give thanks I tried to do it wisely... No going out and feeling left out, no plaintive 'phoning a friend'. I give thanks for getting on with 'useful' tasks about the place, wielding a paintbrush with some Hammerite (giving thanks for the mild weather so the windows could be opened wide), going up and down the big ladder numerous times to dig out some precious remnants of a particular now unobtainable wool I spotted at the bottom of a pile of boxes when I went up there yesterday, putting some battery operated fairy lights in the houseplants so if my dark mood lifts and I want some twinkle it can be there but not in my face mocking me if not.
I give thanks for loving myself lots unconditionally and enduringly, for honouring my sadness and letting myself cry... for grinning at my horoscope read just now which said I'd want company for everything I do today...and for loving unconditionally and enduringly all the people who don't want mine! I give thanks for finally tiring myself out so I don't care so much any more... sitting down and having another fruitless wrestle with the remote control on my new TV box which won't tune into the TV, so I can't operate the volume properly or on my headphones at all... before digging the one out of the recycling pile that went with the previous same style broken box and finding it worked just fine! Right I'm going to stop here, while my world's just bearable for a while and let David Attenborough take me out of it for a while... Oh, and I give thanks for any readers who got this far with my miserable ramblings!
No comments:
Post a Comment