Tag: writing

Tender Gratitude

“Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world…this is the essence of gratefulness…Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention” (Canadian American cultural writer David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen).  

Another writer’s definition of gratitude also aligns with the importance of attention in the present moment: “Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life” (Irish poet David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words).  

Yes, “presence” is key to the experience of gratitude! As Thanksgiving emerges this week into present time, it is a reminder that we might consider being present to gratitude more of the year than on the annual Thursday holiday when many of us gather together to contemplate our blessings. I am reminded that not everyone in America celebrates this day. The distorted narrative of the Pilgrims feasting with indigenous people — who had long settled this land prior to the newcomers’ landing — is disturbing.

On our precious planet we need to be “tender narrators,” a phrase delivered by Polish psychologist-turned-novelist Olga Tokarczuk when she received the Nobel Prize in Literature for her entire writing in 2018. A tender narrator considers the big picture: “…a perspective from where everything can be seen. Seeing everything means recognizing the ultimate fact that all things that exist are mutually connected into a single whole, even if the connections between them are not yet known to us…[it] also means a completely different kind of responsibility for the world, because it becomes obvious that every gesture ‘here’ is connected to a gesture ‘there,’ that a decision taken in one part of the world will have an effect in another part of it, and that differentiating between ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ starts to be debatable.” Is American soil “mine” or “ours?”

In gratitude for her genetic roots, Tokarczuk recalls curiosity about everything. Her wide-eyed life view enables her to make connections that may not be obvious initially. While she invents stories for her novels, she sums up what I endorse as a writer of nonfiction and blogs: “…I made it into a general belief…that our task is to synthesize and consolidate the world, looking for connections, both overt and hidden, and building an image of the world as a complex whole full of mutual relations.” Let’s be grateful for mutual relations.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

448. What prompts gratitude in you?

449. How often do you express gratitude out loud?   

How Many Ways Are There to Say Goodbye?

Salvador Dali, Untitled (Dream of Venus)

I confess that I do not have a ready answer to this question. In fact, I am better at asking questions than supplying answers, if you have been reading my blogs for awhile. How could I possibly know how each of you defines a “good” goodbye? I’m pretty sure that all of us have received poor goodbye versions, but straight from my parenting book, let’s keep a focus on what to do, instead of what not to do. It just is a forward-thinking and healthier route.

I have checked online to see what others think about ways to say goodbye. I was struck by one way — “Peace out” — which I have never heard anyone use! According to a definition, it is “an informal and casual way to say goodbye, often used with a sense of finality.” I have had occasion to say goodbye recently to a number of people who I believe I will never see again; saying “peace out” would have seemed strange. Saying goodbye actually derives from “God be with ye,” shortened to “Godbwye,” before becoming today’s “goodbye.“ 

Here are some other goodbye versions that might have been useful if I had read about them earlier:

  • This is not goodbye, it’s thank you — express gratitude for your relationship and the time spent together, focusing the farewell on fond memories. 
  • “Remember me and smile, for it is better to forget than to remember me and cry”  (Dr. Seuss) — remembering the good times, find peace in each going their separate way.
  • “Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory, and there you will always be” (Disney) — acknowledge the finality of the goodbye while maintaining the enduring nature of memories.

Say yes to memories, but the recognition that you may never see someone again is grieving territory. Colin Murray Parke, a British psychiatrist, coined this version: “The pain of grief…is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.” In a recent discussion with others, one person made this insightful comment: when you have to say a significant goodbye, it brings up all of the other times you were in this situation and it feels sad all over again for those earlier goodbye times. There is grieving in the goodbyes in our lives and we are not fond of grieving. Do we expect everything to “last?” Well, yes.

Poetry can help us deal with the impermanence in life.

“As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever….” (from “Stages” by poet and novelist Herman Hesse, in his last novel, The Glass Bead Game (which won Hesse the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946).

Embrace impermanence and savor your ability to have significant relationships.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

405. How do you say goodbye to someone you may never see again?

406. When can you recall  “good” goodbyes?

Writing Pearls

Illinois Women’s Press Association (IWPA) hosts a contest for writers, both professional writers and beginning writers in high school. I became a member after re-reading Natalie Goldberg’s wonderful book, Writing Down the Bones, and realizing that I too might call myself a writer even though I had only “morning pages” under my writing belt. Goldberg received sage advice from a Zen master: “Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”

Yes, writing takes one everyplace. In 1995 I fell down steep stairs in Chicago on the eve of taking my firstborn to college. Unable to hobble much in my cast, I slowed down. I began writing “morning pages” according to journalist and film/TV writer Julia Cameron’s inspiring book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. I did not imagine that later I would publish three developmental psychology books and create a weekly blog, Pearls of Peace. The word “blog” was not invented until Jorn Barger coined “weblog” in 1997; Peter Merholz reduced the concept to “blog” in 1999.  

Goldberg is strictly a pen-and-notebook (of a special kind) writer. She prefers writing in a café. I can take notes and write poems with a pen, but I prefer the keyboard at my desktop computer for books and blogs. Classical music is my companion when I write, not extraneous conversation. Reportedly, Ernest Hemingway wrote naked at a lectern. He used a pencil but switched to typing for dialogue. Each writer develops their own writing style.

Cameron wrote her “morning pages” for decades; in a lecture she commented that writing is a way to “zip up a concern.” She believed she was writing her 1992 Artist’s Way for “about 5 people.” She was shocked when 5 million copies sold! I do not have this following, but the people who do read my writing give me compassionate feedback. However, we writers are most in need of saying something when we take our pen or keyboard to hand. Among others, Cameron believes that we teach what we need to learn ourselves.

I feel lucky to discover the stimulation of writing in an encore career. I feel lucky to receive awards from my two submissions to the 2024 IWPA Mate E. Palmer Communications Contest:

  • First Place in Web & Social Media Blog, Nonprofit (Government or Educational), IWPA 2024 – “Banned Pearls” (online 10-2-23) 
  • First Place in Non-Fiction Books for Adult Readers, IWPA 2024 – Transforming Retirement: Rewire and Grow Your Legacy (published 2023)

The best part of the Award luncheon was hearing high school writers’ enthusiasm for their craft! I recommend writing at every age. Take Hemingway’s advice: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” My advice? Write a second sentence. Keep writing.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

295. What kind of writing engages you?

296. Is there a type of writing you would like to begin?