Repetitions of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is a strange time for me on this unlearning journey. On one hand, I really love this holiday because it’s not rooted in religion and it revolves around gathering with loved ones and food. On the other hand, it celebrates the genocide of Indigenous peoples. Because of these contradictions, I’m working on bringing elements of learning and unlearning (for myself and my family) into this week rather than celebrating the holiday itself. Yes, we will gather, but now it’s more of an opportunity to reshape our early education on the holiday and to focus more deeply on the concept of gratitude. Check out this article I wrote about the former, this post is about the latter.

​​"Having a holiday that only gives thanks one time a year is dangerous,” Matika Wilbur reflected in an All My Relations Podcast from last year. "Because we [Indigenous people] have ways in our communities of offering thanks and giving thanks on a regular basis that shapes the way that we interact with the world. When we do this on a regular basis it changes our physical interaction with the water [and other elements of Mother Earth]."

I want to invest more in that deeper sense of ongoing gratitude in my own life. Part of doing that is repetition. Repetition in one way is to make gratitude a daily and regular habit. In Ross Gay’s (quite delightful) Book of Delights, he committed to writing daily essayettes on delights during one year of his life. “It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar,” he wrote in the Preface. “Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle.” In the All My Relations podcast, Matika Wilbur also mentioned how a commitment to a gratitude journal can lead to a deeper sense of well-being. And in many ways, they can lead to a deeper, spiritual connection to other beings, the Earth, the possibilities around you that can lead to transformative change.

And in the spirit of repetition, I’m going to begin this week with another form of repetition—that in storytelling. Repetition is a useful literary tool to create emphasis and evoke emotion. It is also poetic. As someone who feels intimidated by poetry (particularly writing poetry), repetition activates a different part of my writer-brain that is challenging and mind-opening (whether it’s good writing or not). With that, here are my reflections on gratitude.

Deep Gratitude

I am deeply grateful for the family with whom I have spent almost every waking moment with these past two years.

I am deeply grateful for our home.

I am deeply grateful for the crumbs on the floor.

I am deeply grateful for the abundance of…everything that we have.

I am deeply grateful for the warmth of our space.

I am deeply grateful for our health.

I am deeply grateful for hugs.

I am deeply grateful for the nightly bedtime snuggles.

I am deeply grateful to see and touch and hug the people we’ve been separated from for these many months.
I am deeply grateful for our community of chosen and given family who are always there for us.

I am deeply grateful for the small businesses and people whose livelihoods and passions have been so much on the line these past few years.

I am deeply grateful for the food and the coffee and the community around which those revolve near us.

I am deeply grateful for the learning communities who help hold me accountable to my values and help me learn and unlearn.

I am deeply grateful for the many people whose life’s work is fighting for justice.

I am deeply grateful for the people and activists who continue to educate me about being a better White person and ally/accomplice.

I am deeply grateful for the people who make our communities run.

I am deeply grateful for the people who dedicate their lives to making other peoples’ lives better. I am deeply grateful for the young people who are dedicating their lives to ensuring this Earth is preserved for future generations.

I am deeply grateful for the Black, Indigenous, and people of color who are leading justice movements. 

I am deeply grateful for the people who are relentless in their causes whom I learn from every day on how to be a better, more relentless person. 

I am deeply grateful.

I am deeply grateful.

I am deeply grateful.