Thanksgiving in July

I’ve been thinking about gratitude this week because right now, I am thankful for all the ordinary things that have come back into my life—lunch and work days with Liz, anticipation of trips to new places, evenings of fun with lake friends again, and even a trip to the grocery store instead of ordering online. It’s been a weird year and half in everyone’s life, mine included. It’s almost as if we don’t know what to do, and yet what we need to do is simply be normal again. But…normal is different and we’re all going to have to figure out what our personal new normal is. Mine is a touch more wary that it was eighteen months ago…still happy, still grateful for all the blessings in my life, but…well, wary.

I’ve been using Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance daybook for morning devotions again this year—it’s an older volume that I turn back to about every other year because it’s so full of amazing thoughts and reminders about how we are responsible for our own happiness. A lot of the book is about being thankful—about celebrating the sacred in the ordinary, which is hard to do in a world where everything is about being extraordinary, the biggest, the best. I think, as writers, we all struggle with wanting to be the best—a bestseller—but the fact is, I’m probably not ever going to be on the New York Times bestseller list, although I will continue to strive. That can’t be the reason I write or I lose all authenticity in my storytelling. Rather, I shall write from my heart, grateful that I have a gift I can share with the world, no matter the size of that world.

Ban Breathnach says, “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”

Isn’t that the truth? Today, this day in July, I’m grateful for everyday epiphanies and finding the sacred in the ordinary.

Stay well, stay safe, and most of, mes amies, stay grateful!

~~Nan~~