Tygarjas Twyrls Blog

Given the week I’ve had, I think I’ll write a meditation on Gratitude.

My Gratitude for those who have given me gifts of their presence in my life that have made me grow into someone in anyway tolerable is my chief gratitude when I regard others. If my writings are either intelligible, or understandable, or even vaguely interesting, their are certain people I have to thank more than others. In the case of this week, my Gratitude, first of all about a month ago, inspired me to seek my 7th grade English teacher in the hopes that she might be happy that her teachings inspired, in part, my continued Love of words. In fact, not only did she inspire a sincere interest in me for continuing to enjoy literature and the language, and the things that can be made out of the language, but she also inspired me to fight any inclinations I might have to be a royal shit head, and to strive to be kind, even if for some reason or another I’m in unfortunate enough a state of being that it occurs to me to be otherwise. She taught me, also, to share.

And I received back an address to send her my book. And it took me longer than I thought it would to send it out because of a brief malady and a lot of work and life and etc . . . And so, I decided to make up for my delays by paying her a visit personally at the school she currently teaches at. I was delighted that she was delighted I had decided to surprise her.

If merely she had been very happy to have seen me, and happy that she had influenced my love of words to inspire me to continue my studies in English even to the extent of writing a book, the day would have been complete. If only enjoying that she was enjoying seeing me was all the day had had to show of itself, my gratitude would have been fulfilling in me for the sake of that experience alone. But on top of that, she decided to have me speak to a couple of her classes.

Just a little Q and A, and then a few of the kids showed me what they were working on, and I very timidly offered feedback I thought would be beneficial. I thought it was a great honor to answer their questions. It was a great honor to share some of my life with them, and maybe even an idea or two. And it was a great honor to share the positive effect my teacher had on me, and that I was grateful to spend a little time with them. This impulse of gratitude to share my meager work with my teacher resulted in an experience in which not only could I share my Gratitude with my teacher, but also I was allowed to share that experience of gratitude with other young minds whom I had never met. And I suppose, the entirety of what amazes me about this experience is the immediately visceral experience of a drop of genuine gratitude apparently sending a wave through the ocean. Or at least, a good sized ripple through the entirety of the pond, and perhaps even a little bit of the creek.

And then the next day I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones . . .

(I’ll tell you right now: part 1 is cool, part 2 is where it jumps to HARDCORE!)

Anyway, as they started playing, I couldn’t help but notice that Jeff Coffin didn’t seem to be with them. It didn’t take me long to guess that Howard Levy was playing with them instead. Howard Levy hasn’t played with the Flecktones since 1992. And the music was such that as I found myself immersed in gratitude to be seeing a legend play whom I never thought I would see live, I also felt wave after wave of the soul permeating music flood through every bit of me, and as some sort of poison seemed to be flooded clean of my core, I couldn’t help but cry tears of joy and gratitude for my existence and the place I found myself sitting, enwrapped within the sound of divine ecstasy. If you’ve watched part two of the above you might have the slightest hint of what I mean.

Gratitude is immediately its own reward. From wanting to share gratitude with one, immediately I found myself sharing gratitude with many. From sharing that gratitude with many, I found I was more grateful still. Experiencing gratitude alone, it is a good feeling. To take one’s attention from what one doesn’t like in a situation, and to turn one’s attention to anything a person can be grateful for about a situation, that same moment in time immediately is, at least, somehow eased. One may not be able to appreciate the rain if they happen to be walking through it, but they can still be grateful for water to drink, and the food that is growing because of an inconvenience they might be perceiving in addition to the gratitude for the existence they get to enjoy. If ever there was sustenance divine, gratitude be its name. The cure for any ill, the pleasure of ecstasy amplified a hundred fold. To remember one is grateful is to not be ruled by those things in life that from time to time might be unavoidable that are harder to be grateful for. And as like attracts like, and thought creates, as we focus on the gratitude, better things come into focus, and we find ourselves naturally drawn to what we will find ourselves more Grateful to behold still.

TTFN