Gratitude
Last night my neighbor, Joseph, came bouncing in (it is amazing how a six foot six 23 year old can bounce, but I assure you, he did) at midnight and woke me up. He couldn’t wait to share his news. He’d just returned from a concert by his favorite group. One he had introduced me a couple months ago when I put my head on his shoulder for the first time. He had given away my ticket for last night because my brain clot headaches are back and the sound (and, truth be told, his bouncing) makes them worse. I slept in somewhat mournful peace, trying to not feel guilty about another medicine intern covering my thirty hour shift that night.
He woke me up because he simply could not contain his excitement. He got to hang out with the band members, the ones in the movie, “Once,” Glen and Marketa, now on a first name basis with him. His grin spread nearly as wide as he stands tall, especially when he slouches, which he usually does.
“The show was amazing!” he stretches out the vowel sounds when he feels extra heights of emotion. “Aaah-maa-zing!” And he talks really fast. “I got to hang out with them,” he pulls out his tiny new phone and shows me a blurry picture of him and Marketa. “The stage people tried to get everyone to leave, but Glen said no and he would stay and sign anything anyone wanted. I didn’t have anything for them to sign but I sat down to talk with them and hang out. I asked if they wanted to go surfing, but they’re driving to Colorado tonight. I talked with Marketa mostly,” his grin grows wider if possible, “She is so little. You know in the movie how she makes Glen look tall?” he never waits for me to respond to these rhetorical questions, and especially not now in his exuberance, “Well they’re both little. He’s probably 5’8’ or 5’9 and she’s tiny! I just wanted to pick her up and take her home with me.” He mimes the action and I can see him doing it in my mind, Marketa with a shocked pleased look on her face as he lifts her to his height.
I still felt groggy, but very glad for him to have enjoyed himself so much. I smiled deeply and scooted over in my warmed up bed so he could sit on the edge and share and show me the picture on his phone. He couldn’t sit still for long, though. I rubbed his knee slowly and he patted me rapidly and smiled like he does when even his toes are glad. “I’m glad you had such a good time,” I smiled with head still in the warm nest of my pillow.
“Yeah, I was going to try to tell you that it was just okay so you wouldn’t feel bad about missing it, but I couldn’t. It was amazing!” He stretches out the vowels again. “I got to hang out with them. They played for way longer than they were supposed to. You could just tell it was a good night for them. There was this guy there who was at the Las Vegas show and he said it was totally different and way better here. They talked a lot when they were on stage and involved the audience. Glen said he didn’t know what it was either. Maybe the rain he could see through the door,” It hardly ever rains in San Diego and when it does people get paradoxically intoxicated with the novelty of it, “Or something. But they played for over two and a half hours and he played this song that he’s trying to get on Seasame Street. About bananas and we all sang along. He’d never played it for anyone other crowd before but he said he just felt so good that night.” He talks without punctuation. The joy from one sentence spills right into the next; and he keeps repeating the information as if to prove to himself and me that the magic really did happen. I like seeing him so completely happy.
This morning as I’m breathing through my yoga exercises led by the man in the video on my computer, I think of why Glen stayed as long as his fans wanted to share time with him. At the Mason Jenning’s concert Joseph, Chris and I went to last week, Mason didn’t come out to sign anything. And Joseph couldn’t even get his guitar pick as a souvenir. Maybe it was the rain last night. Sometimes lives align so you can see “everything appear to man as it is, infinite,” says William Blake. And in that glimpse of infinity, when all of the clutter of the present disappears, you feel gratitude. I imagine Glen feeling gratitude for his fans last night—the people who appreciate him deeply enough to support him in doing what he loves. He felt gratitude for the woman at his side whose voice and life had been joined to his through the turn of events in their now collective music. Glen’s gratitude spilled over onto the giddy man sitting on my bed, and his joy spilled onto me. Happiness spreads that way, infinitely.
“Anyway,” Joseph bubbles on and stands up, grabbing the new brown corduroy jacket he likes so much, “Sorry to wake you. I just had to tell you and your phone was off. I got to hang out with them! It was amazing!” he looks extra tall from my bed and the light from the open door silhouettes his lanky figure; “You have a good night!” he leaves with another instantly spreading grin and another exuberant vowel sound, locking my door behind him.
He dislikes being alone, especially when he has so much excitement to share. He doesn’t like to enjoy it quietly and savor it like I sometimes do. One of the many ways he and I are different. When I visited Spain for two weeks in the midst of my crush on him, I could pick him up and take him with me like he wanted to do with Marketa. Without him physically present, I made him into everything I wanted. I came back and, after the first shocks of reality colliding with imagination, saw him for himself and the crush abated. Though I did enjoy the depths of feeling and fantasy, I enjoyed them alone. I am profoundly grateful to have felt those feelings again--grateful to Joseph and to Spain and for the gift of still being able to think clearly and deeply after my strokes and my new illness. And yet.
“And yet” is a refrain from Nicole Krauss’ “The History of Love,” which Joseph loaned me to read while I traveled around Spain. The book is about a man who loves; and loving is his life, despite the reality of never marrying the woman of his deepest affections. And yet, the reality, when left outside, cannot discolor his fantasies and memories he hoards inside his small cluttered apartment. In his head, he knows only his love; and his love is perfect.
Both of my parents have decided to read the book now, on my recommendation. As far as I know, neither one knows the other’s eyes are glazing the same words at maybe the same time. They don’t talk to each other much anymore after finalizing the divorce last month. I tell them I want them both happy.
They thought their love would last forever, that it could go beyond their twenty-year-olds’ infatuation with each other, that it could spread into raising my two brothers and me, and that together they would greet grandchildren on the family farm. They got the first two right.
I watch Joseph as he practically prances, in a manly way, of course, out of my door into the still rain-scented night. My parents were married by the time they were his age. When I was 23, I had almost finished college and trying to get over my first broken heart. At his age, I still thought the reality and the fantasy of love could meet and hold hands into eternity. I thought that joy he felt from his magic concert night could be found and maintained with another person. And my parents thought the same. Even as they start new separate relationships, they think the same on their second tries. I want to tell them that, in my experience, the infatuation doesn’t last. But the gratitude can. That deep appreciation of the feelings the other person evokes in you can last, even if the other person leaves or changes or grows differently than you. The stability of love is your own.
In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Victor Frankl writes, “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.” He thinks this in the concentration camp as he talks to the image of his wife he holds in his mind. He did not then know she was already dead, but, as he says, it doesn’t matter, because he holds her in his mind. And in his mind, she is wholly present and completely his own—a love for which he feels a gratitude spreading into his infinity.
He woke me up because he simply could not contain his excitement. He got to hang out with the band members, the ones in the movie, “Once,” Glen and Marketa, now on a first name basis with him. His grin spread nearly as wide as he stands tall, especially when he slouches, which he usually does.
“The show was amazing!” he stretches out the vowel sounds when he feels extra heights of emotion. “Aaah-maa-zing!” And he talks really fast. “I got to hang out with them,” he pulls out his tiny new phone and shows me a blurry picture of him and Marketa. “The stage people tried to get everyone to leave, but Glen said no and he would stay and sign anything anyone wanted. I didn’t have anything for them to sign but I sat down to talk with them and hang out. I asked if they wanted to go surfing, but they’re driving to Colorado tonight. I talked with Marketa mostly,” his grin grows wider if possible, “She is so little. You know in the movie how she makes Glen look tall?” he never waits for me to respond to these rhetorical questions, and especially not now in his exuberance, “Well they’re both little. He’s probably 5’8’ or 5’9 and she’s tiny! I just wanted to pick her up and take her home with me.” He mimes the action and I can see him doing it in my mind, Marketa with a shocked pleased look on her face as he lifts her to his height.
I still felt groggy, but very glad for him to have enjoyed himself so much. I smiled deeply and scooted over in my warmed up bed so he could sit on the edge and share and show me the picture on his phone. He couldn’t sit still for long, though. I rubbed his knee slowly and he patted me rapidly and smiled like he does when even his toes are glad. “I’m glad you had such a good time,” I smiled with head still in the warm nest of my pillow.
“Yeah, I was going to try to tell you that it was just okay so you wouldn’t feel bad about missing it, but I couldn’t. It was amazing!” He stretches out the vowels again. “I got to hang out with them. They played for way longer than they were supposed to. You could just tell it was a good night for them. There was this guy there who was at the Las Vegas show and he said it was totally different and way better here. They talked a lot when they were on stage and involved the audience. Glen said he didn’t know what it was either. Maybe the rain he could see through the door,” It hardly ever rains in San Diego and when it does people get paradoxically intoxicated with the novelty of it, “Or something. But they played for over two and a half hours and he played this song that he’s trying to get on Seasame Street. About bananas and we all sang along. He’d never played it for anyone other crowd before but he said he just felt so good that night.” He talks without punctuation. The joy from one sentence spills right into the next; and he keeps repeating the information as if to prove to himself and me that the magic really did happen. I like seeing him so completely happy.
This morning as I’m breathing through my yoga exercises led by the man in the video on my computer, I think of why Glen stayed as long as his fans wanted to share time with him. At the Mason Jenning’s concert Joseph, Chris and I went to last week, Mason didn’t come out to sign anything. And Joseph couldn’t even get his guitar pick as a souvenir. Maybe it was the rain last night. Sometimes lives align so you can see “everything appear to man as it is, infinite,” says William Blake. And in that glimpse of infinity, when all of the clutter of the present disappears, you feel gratitude. I imagine Glen feeling gratitude for his fans last night—the people who appreciate him deeply enough to support him in doing what he loves. He felt gratitude for the woman at his side whose voice and life had been joined to his through the turn of events in their now collective music. Glen’s gratitude spilled over onto the giddy man sitting on my bed, and his joy spilled onto me. Happiness spreads that way, infinitely.
“Anyway,” Joseph bubbles on and stands up, grabbing the new brown corduroy jacket he likes so much, “Sorry to wake you. I just had to tell you and your phone was off. I got to hang out with them! It was amazing!” he looks extra tall from my bed and the light from the open door silhouettes his lanky figure; “You have a good night!” he leaves with another instantly spreading grin and another exuberant vowel sound, locking my door behind him.
He dislikes being alone, especially when he has so much excitement to share. He doesn’t like to enjoy it quietly and savor it like I sometimes do. One of the many ways he and I are different. When I visited Spain for two weeks in the midst of my crush on him, I could pick him up and take him with me like he wanted to do with Marketa. Without him physically present, I made him into everything I wanted. I came back and, after the first shocks of reality colliding with imagination, saw him for himself and the crush abated. Though I did enjoy the depths of feeling and fantasy, I enjoyed them alone. I am profoundly grateful to have felt those feelings again--grateful to Joseph and to Spain and for the gift of still being able to think clearly and deeply after my strokes and my new illness. And yet.
“And yet” is a refrain from Nicole Krauss’ “The History of Love,” which Joseph loaned me to read while I traveled around Spain. The book is about a man who loves; and loving is his life, despite the reality of never marrying the woman of his deepest affections. And yet, the reality, when left outside, cannot discolor his fantasies and memories he hoards inside his small cluttered apartment. In his head, he knows only his love; and his love is perfect.
Both of my parents have decided to read the book now, on my recommendation. As far as I know, neither one knows the other’s eyes are glazing the same words at maybe the same time. They don’t talk to each other much anymore after finalizing the divorce last month. I tell them I want them both happy.
They thought their love would last forever, that it could go beyond their twenty-year-olds’ infatuation with each other, that it could spread into raising my two brothers and me, and that together they would greet grandchildren on the family farm. They got the first two right.
I watch Joseph as he practically prances, in a manly way, of course, out of my door into the still rain-scented night. My parents were married by the time they were his age. When I was 23, I had almost finished college and trying to get over my first broken heart. At his age, I still thought the reality and the fantasy of love could meet and hold hands into eternity. I thought that joy he felt from his magic concert night could be found and maintained with another person. And my parents thought the same. Even as they start new separate relationships, they think the same on their second tries. I want to tell them that, in my experience, the infatuation doesn’t last. But the gratitude can. That deep appreciation of the feelings the other person evokes in you can last, even if the other person leaves or changes or grows differently than you. The stability of love is your own.
In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Victor Frankl writes, “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.” He thinks this in the concentration camp as he talks to the image of his wife he holds in his mind. He did not then know she was already dead, but, as he says, it doesn’t matter, because he holds her in his mind. And in his mind, she is wholly present and completely his own—a love for which he feels a gratitude spreading into his infinity.
posted by S. at 12:00 AM
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