Being grateful in 2020

I’ve already applied for my refund on a faulty 2020, and written a scathing review (“poor quality, noisy, inadequate safety measures”). Frankly, it’s not been the sort of year I expect I’ll be fondly reminiscing about with old friends.

There’s the day-job work simmering on the new desk that consumes a sizeable chunk of my living room where a comfy chair once stood. The nervous chatter about coronavirus infection rates on my local NPR affiliate. The nightly temptation to doomscroll Washington Post headlines on the latest presidential lies and prevarications. The mental bargaining with myself over whether the lack of milk and salad greens in the refrigerator (and the paucity of loo roll in the pantry) is dire enough to warrant a trip to the grocery store. And so on and so on. Nope, not the kind of year I’d recommend to friends.

Despite all this madness, my yoga instructor persists in closing every class with a moment of quiet and reflection. “Bring hands together to heart-center,” she says. “Close your eyes and say to yourself one thing you feel thankful or grateful for today.”

I sit quietly, just breathing, and search my mind for something I can honestly give thanks for that morning… Then the moment passes, the class ends, and I step back into the torrent of daily life in 2020.

This used to be fun

Even shopping for this Thanksgiving weekend brought on a wave of anxiety far beyond previous years’ concerns. In 2019, I worried about the availability of cranberries, the merits of pumpkin vs apple pies, and whether six people could consume 16 pounds of turkey. Not now. Yesterday, I fretted over how many people in a supermarket aisle was too many to pass close by? Why were the paper-goods shelves almost completely empty again? Which was more rude: to hover six feet behind the lady dithering over salad dressings or to just dart in and grab a jar of mayonnaise while muttering apologies behind my mask?

I was so grateful to get home! I could strip off the day’s clothes and toss them straight in the washing machine. There was unlimited hot water for tea and a shower! I don’t have to leave the house for five days! It was almost worth unrolling my yoga mat and having a formal moment of gratitude.

There’s that word again

Thanksgiving Day is all about feeling grateful, giving the universe thanks for … well, whatever one thinks of in the moment at the family dinner table. One doesn’t like to delay the guests’ attack on the celery-and-olive tray, so the gratitude can seem rushed or trite. “My family.” “My friends.” “That Uncle Fred didn’t try deep-frying the turkey again this year!”

With no one but the cats to entertain for in-house dining this year, there’ll be no reason to hurry. No divided attention either. (“Did I turn off the burner under the gravy?”) Instead, I’m going to try and channel that quiet zen-like moment on the yoga mat throughout the day. Here are some things I think I can — hand on heart — say I am grateful for in this awful, unspeakable, year.

• Unexpected connections: The very fact I have a yoga instructor (who also does a mean line in resistance-band abs workouts) is thanks to the pandemic. And Zoom. And the fact I can wear yoga pants to work every day, and that class is only 20′ from my desk. I get to join this wonderful class because one of the instructor’s friends was inspired to forward the invite. For once, time and distance really were no obstacle to us connecting several times a week.
• Unusual gatherings: Some of my new limber friends joined me for a Four Time-Zone Democratic National Convention Watch Party. The event itself unusual — and wonderful — for the way it conducted the state-by-state roll call.
• Ornithology studies with my cats: That desk I was grumbling about earlier is a wild improvement on the wobbly card table I worked on when the boss sent us to Work From Home for the foreseeable. Not only is it built from steel and reinforced wood, but it fits perfectly by my south-facing window wall. The garden beyond the glass put on a dazzling display of irises and roses in July. The real treat, however, has been the constantly changing cast of avian characters at the feeders. Extra suet — plus the fall migration — has brought new birds into the yard. Appropriately for a pandemic year, several of these birds (the Townsend’s warbler and the Varied thrush) wore masks.
• Musical exploration: Because I work in an open-plan, barely-cubicled, office, listening to music during the work day was discouraged. (I know some people worked under headphones or earbuds, but I always felt snuck-up-upon when I tried it.) Now, with no one to disturb but the cats — and they don’t react to much of anything aside from Bird Note — I can play anything that strikes my fancy. There’s KNKX to kick up my morning mood with some hot jazz. (Although what will I do now Dick Stein is retiring?!) I alternate midday snacks with KNKX’s Blue Plate Special and KING-FM‘s Bach’s Lunch. I tune in NWPB‘s classical station and some Mozart when I need to concentrate.
• Time for creativity: My determination to research, design and write 40 Ways of Looking at Manhattan got a boost from lockdown. I couldn’t go out frivolling with friends, so I glued myself to the Eames chair every day at 5pm, dining later and later as the days lengthened. And as the days grew longer, the stack of identified photos and completed copy grew taller. So a grudging ‘thank you’ to the coronavirus that closed my favorite restaurants and bars.

I guess the next time the yoga teacher asks me to bring hands to heart-center, my mind won’t pull a blank. I’ll just let my heart speak for me — it plainly already knows what it’s talking about.

Banner photo by Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels