Thankful Tuesday: Find, fancy, forget

Island House by Andrew Wyeth

Because it's winter and we need an early and extra dose of gratitude (and Thursday is just too far away), it's Thankful Tuesday. Please join me in a pause and perspective shift by expressing gratitude for people, places, things and more. 

On this Thankful Tuesday, I am grateful for:

1. Andrew Wyeth 
For this:

A landscape becomes a stage for a crisis of thought.

And this:

"I think anything . . .  which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone — people always feel is sad. Is it because we've lost the art of being alone?"

—from The Art of Andrew Wyeth 

2. Unaswerables
The Book of Questions, by Pablo Neruda, is a slim collection I often forget, find, fancy, and forget again. Like a horoscope or fortune cookie, today I dip in and find: 

Is it true sadness is thick
and melancholy thin?

and this:

In winter, do the leaves live
in hiding with the roots?

What did the tree learn from the earth
to be able to talk with the sky? 

3.  Thrum of Winter
People are dying, still and again. In my personal life, my professional life. Even this season — winter — feels like a deep thrum of silence. 

Yes, yes, I know, where there is darkness there is light. This is life: births, deaths, hellos, goodbyes, and the great stretch of dailyness in which we are stretched between dishes, laundry, office, errands and chores.

We forget this is living only because it seems like existing — until it ends, and then we cherish the mundane routine as if it were a gripping movie we wish to see just once more. We are actors and audience. We are clapping, then nodding off, in a loop of begins and ends. 

I don't want to count the bodies, tally our grief. And yet, we do, don't we? We justify our agony. This is why, and this and this. But grief isn't logical,  so the score means nothing, and yet, everything.  

4. Maudlin
Am I maudlin? Yes, I am, if only to wake myself, to stir the sadness with something more than understanding, to stir the understanding with something more than tears, to stir the tears with something more than surrender.  

5. Rowing 

but I am rowing, 

I am rowing

though the wind 

pushes me back.

— Anne Sexton 

6. Blast from the Past
 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

I cannot stop watching this landmark television show. I'm on a binge, cheering for Mary Richard's burgeoning career, independence, friendship and fashion. Thank you 1970s. 

And that theme song!

Love Is All Around 
by Sonny Curtis

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day
And suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Well, it’s you girl and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to fake it
You can have the town, why don’t you take it?
You’re gonna make it after all

How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big
And all this time you’re all alone

Well it’s time you started livin’
It's time you let someone else do some giving

Love is all around, no need to fake it
You can have the town, why don’t you take it?
You’re gonna make it after all
You’re gonna make it after all 

Your turn: What are you thankful for today? 

Comments

[Cindi]

Love this show and tune! Where do you watch Mary Tyler Moore? Being older, I thought I could be “ That Girl”.

[Drew]

Cindi,
I love 'That Girl" too. It may be my next binge.

I've been watching MTM on Hulu (and they have "That Girl" too).