The One with all the Thankfuls

My L.L. Bean boots sludge through the mud soaked and leave scattered ground. The slushy trail leads me through tangled and gnarled up trees and this euphoric-like forest where you might just see a fairy. My body feels lighter just walking towards something new.

I needed to get out of the house, out of town, out of my head for a while, so I headed to the woods. I found this nature trail running one day a couple of months ago and it has become my favorite running trail as of yet in Michigan.
Today, I decide to leave my running shoes behind and walk the trail. Taking my time, stopping when I want to, inspecting the moss growing up tall oak trees, and taking pictures of the golden red leaves still hanging from some maple branches. At last I stop by a sandy shore along the river and allow my mind to pause and find perspective. I count the leaves by my boots and draw my fingers through the sand. It is a slightly cloudy and grey day.
I’m not going to lie it was a pretty rough week.
It rained every day, the sun barely came out, and due to the overcast clouds at night I was never able to see the almost full moon.
My new Michigan car insurance came through and turned out to be about double the cost of my New York insurance. It scared me to know that the only income I have is from my not paid enough job as an Assistant Teacher at a Montessori children’s school, and that that would not be nearly enough to pay for all of the insurance. It gets worse.
My new Michigan driver’s license picture looks like I stepped out of hell.
I am driving a rental car with no working lights on the dashboard, while my Mazda is in the shop getting some body work done.
The cat threw up a few times again. In numerous places this time.
I ran out of candles in the house and don’t know if I will have enough money to buy any more this weekend. Candles help keep my fire burning. Get it?
Oh…and I can’t forget that I got slapped in the face by a five-year-old boy in school the other day. That was the first time I ever got slapped in the face.  And it hurt. Bad.

I was cracking. The tension of life was pulling me in all directions and I didn’t know where to go next. What to do first. How this even all happened in the first place? When did becoming an adult become so hard? I take pride in growing up, in figuring out the challenges of life on my own, with the side advise of my parents and older friends. But this past week, I was done.
A part of me just wanted to pack it all away and travel back a few years. To the days when I had no car insurance payments or cats to worry about or candles to run out of.
A part of me just wanted it all to end.
As I cried into my boyfriend’s arms one night I realized how pathetic I must look.
A college educated, employed and yoga teaching American woman in the prime of her 20’s, complaining about her lack of money and shitty driver’s license picture. The tears felt fake as they fell.
That’s when I remembered my Thankfuls.

“Thankfuls” was an essay I wrote my senior year in college. It was published in The Laurentian, St. Lawrence’s art and literary magazine and I was asked to read it at the issue’s publication party. It is the one writing piece I am proud of. Not that I am not proud of them all, but this is the only essay that after years of not reading I would still not change a sentence.
It’s the essay that could hold true for the rest of my life.
The essay about all of my Thankfuls. All of the beautiful things that make up me. That make me grateful to be living and breathing in this fresh and never dull world.
The essay that defines me; breaks me down into 11 categories and puts me all back together again, forming the better and best person I want to be.
The one and only me.

Thankfuls

1. Swinging in the hop house, bad puppy, The Berenstean Bears, sewing kits, socks, Children’s Tylenol, chocolate chip cookies made with honey, a broken left front tooth, vegetable gardens, a 1972 yellow Chevy van, Rafi in the tub, my slinky.

2. My house was built around the time of the Civil War. It is white and square and called an Italianate in architectural house lingo. There is a second stairway in the back that was made for slave use only. Now we use it as a pantry. The ghost’s name is Flint. He lives in my closet.

3. It was when my foot started to feel like it could not twist straight. Like it was coiled up in a knot. When I ran on the road my footsteps felt sloppy and heavy like a cold bucket of water. It was when my foot got caught. When my foot hurt so bad I thought I could pee. It was when I thought I would die if I could not run again that I knew running was that important. That running was my form of the Buddha. My own made up religion. My rose of the day whenever we exchanged them at dinner. I figured as long as I had ankles I could put all of my pressure on those instead. You do not need feet to run. You need grounding.

4. In 1953, 66% of women became housewives straight out of college. I don’t even know how to cook a chicken. Can I say I’m a vegetarian?

5. I did not know who I was yelling to when I yelled to the wrong person across the basketball court in fifth grade. A few weeks later I wore my first pair of glasses. Now, one-a-day Daily contacts with a -4.0 prescription give me a clear and colorful world. One that I would not be having without them. Of all his daughter’s, I was the one to get my father’s eyes. They are a deep, deer eye brown. The color though comes from my mother.

6. I am thankful for the sun that rises every day, even if we can’t quite see it. I am thankful for the moon when it becomes full. For the rivers and the rope swing that I always hesitate in letting go of. For the mountains and the peaks that carry me upward to new heights. I am thankful for the wind that tells me to run harder. For the berry bushes that leave scratches on my arms, the mud that crawls under my fingernails, the smell of smoke from the last ashes of fire. I am thankful for the rain. It sounds like clapping hands.

7. I pray to a God who has my voice. Whose body is made up of words.

8. Six months ago I found out I was going to India. A few days ago, when I went to open my Hindi Beginner’s Guide Book, it hit me that I actually was. I guess all I needed to do was look at my plane ticket. It says I leave the 23rd of August. I will be 21 and a half years old to the day. I do not think I will have a better half birthday. No, I am not accepting gifts. This is more than enough.

9. I remember when I wanted to be just like her. When I did everything she did. Including mimic her hair style, her dressing habits, her luck of finding four leaf clovers along the road, running in only a sports bra, discovering the magic of mountains. I still want to be just like her. Only now I think I am. I don’t even have to try. We are twins born seven years apart. I think we will die on the same day.

10. Disposable cameras, skinny dipping, dawn of the buffalo, the smell of old records, using Christmas lights at any time of the year, picking wildflowers from the cemetery, jean overalls, swing sets, red wine after hiking, a bed that works, a body not broken, seven books of poetry on the shelf.

11. There is a picture of me in first grade wearing a pair of Looney Tune overalls and holding a wooden no. 2 pencil. I am writing. Writing words, ideas, and sentences. I think this was the day I decided I wanted to become a writer when I grow up. When I knew all I wanted to do was write lots of words, ideas, and sentences.  15 years later I am.

 

I walk out of the woods a little different.
A little more relieved and a lot more thankful. To this day it still surprises me how a walk in the woods can make me feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle any hardship that lies in my tracks.
Walking along the still and silent river to my car, I feel stronger. A little bit more grown up. Or at least I am trying to. Sometimes it’s hard to grow up when we I don’t know where to go or what to do. After my walk today, I have come to accept that it is okay though. That at 24 years old, I don’t need to know all the answers or how to solve all my questions. That if an outrageously expensive car insurance bill and stressful day at work is all I am worrying about, then I think I will be okay. That things like this happen and it is our job to work through them, not around them.

That is the glory of life. That is how we learn. How we become more whole individuals.
I lift the handle of my loaner Buick door and it screeches slowly open. I sit down in the old stained seat and twist the key into start. The car revs itself alive and as I go to flip the switch to turn on the headlights I notice the bright dashboard. After a week of the dashboard lights being out and having to turn on the overhead light to check my speed every now and again at night, there was now light behind the gaged numbers.
I laugh out loud at this silly and simple happenstance, and think this is just another thing I have to be thankful for.

 

P.S.  The pictures used in this blog post I am sad to say were taken by my phone camera, not a disposable camera.  Let me remind you though, I am still super thankful for disposable cameras  and had to make my boyfriend go out and buy me one last week because I just finished one and had no money to buy another.  That’s love baby…for the cameras and the cause=))