Gratitude

My wife lost her glasses. They were missing for over 3 weeks. Each of the four of us in this home tried looking for them several times over – we just could not find them.

Then I tried something different. Instead of telling the universe, “Oh my, the glasses are missing.” I said out loud, “Thank you for showing me the glasses.” I hopped into the future with the end result being the glasses were in my hand, and being thankful for that too.

I thrive being around people with imagination.

People who can see things that aren’t there yet and talk about them as if they are real right now. Like cars that fly, a practical end to hunger and healing sounds that work infinitely better than chemical drugs.

People who can create – pictures, music, dance, inventions.

People who can see the world in a better way.

Without these people, I feel lonely. Yes, my wife and children fill a kind of loneliness, for which I am very thankful.

I really enjoy looking at tree bark - the whorls and swirls of bark as it moves up the trunk of the tree. It overlaps like house shingles. And it eddies around limbs and around the stumps of fallen limbs. You see the tree holes, and the flow of the bark around them.

The patterns are mesmerizing, like watching water that is stopped.

It really seems like something is written on the tree, by the tree, over and over again.

And when a vine climbs the tree, it is even more beautiful, especially in the autumn when the vine turns red.

We live on a quiet street. Each house is surrounded by a wooded acre. Our only excitement is watching small wild animals frolic in our yards.

On the first Saturday in December all that changes. The Community Center holds “The Jingle Bell Run.” The first year of the run, about thirty people participated and they were probably the committee members.

This year hundreds participated.

On the morning of the event, everyone registers at the Community Center and gets a number and a necklace of bells.

Introduction

This song was written by my wife. I supplied the melody for song and just a few of the lyrics. Here’s my wife’s explanation for writing it. “I wrote this song at the end of fall in Rochester New York, a few weeks after November 19, 1976, our wedding day. As the first snowfall left its coating in white, I thought of the path I took as a single woman out on my own, to marriage, to my husband, a poet, artist musician. The end of one road traveled when single was the beginning of new roads ahead as a couple.”

There is something about winter which I really love.

It feels sleepy, resting, in a sense meditating.

It seems to give an upspoken permission to just relax – to have some time for yourself.

All the colors are muted - grays and washed-out browns. And the trees are laid bare, to show a visual essence language written by their shapes, their intricate and poetic lines, all outlined with lacy fine twigs around the edges. At sunset, they glow orange.

The sun is hazy, diffuse behind a gray sky – you may even think it’s the moon.

There’s something about a very old photograph that really draws me in. Perhaps it’s the black and white monochrome world that looks oddly “at a distance” – as if that’s the best that could be done at that time – almost like a dream.

I like to see how people are dressed and I try to sense how it felt to be in that place at that time. Did the air feel different?

It pains me to have to recycle glass jars, but we simply do not have room to store every jar we get.

Of course, many items in the store are packaged in plastic or cardboard. The day may come when there will no longer be glass jars.

When I was a little girl, each glass jar was put to use.

   The actual song itself is available only in spoken form, as requested by Philip.

About the Author

Phil Gross has written poetry and turned them into songs since he was about 19 years old. Many people write in diaries or journals.
Poetry and songs are his journals, documenting his life, strife, loves and the passing of his years.

I am driving to my next destination
As I am on this country road
Looking around
I am thinking wow isn’t it amazing
This car that just transports me
With these wheels that I can go
here and there
To and from
Often I wonder
Do we just forget the attitude of gratitude
Of being able to be so mobile
There are so many people who don’t have a car and need to walk everywhere
Although walking is a really good exercise
Just being able to move in an automobile
Is just really pretty much a gift
I happy to be able to transport myself