Giving Thanks

I give thanks for it all. The early hours of the morning. My waking mind and the prayer forming on my lips. Eyes splitting open to the gift of dawn. The sensation of life again. The shocking reality that I am rising into a new day, that everything before this moment belongs now in the past. I move my body slowly from the bed and plant my feet on the floor. It is quiet, but for a hum that settles over the apartment. I am still waking up, still arriving at a place of sure presence. Daniel sleeps soundly. I do not ever want it to get old, though I fear it might. I want to see him each day with new eyes. To be jolted with joy at the sight of him. To be surprised by his being, and to embrace all that he is. It is silly to admit that I am quite baffled by the hopeful permanence of marriage. To recognize that we have each other for the rest of our lives, for however short or long the years we have to live. To know that I will only wake up to him. Only come home to him. That no one else would know my tendencies, mannerisms, frustrations, and hopes as much as he. Yes, he might even see all I do not see about myself and how terrifyingly beautiful that is. That our lives, and indeed our worlds, are meshed, welded, intricately woven beyond comprehension. There is not one without the other. It is a long journey, we have been told, and my, how gracious that we do not have to walk the path alone. For the hands that wrap around me to make me feel safe. For the cold glass of milk at my bedside every night. For conversations that seem to never come to an end. For inside jokes and laughter and moments that belong only to us. A knowing look across the room, and we can tell what the other is thinking. A language of our own. One with whom I am immediately at ease. All guards let down. I am utterly me, and you are utterly you, and how miraculous that we never need be anything other than who we are. Here, there is immeasurable gratitude for apologies and promises to be better. For forgiveness and kindness. For love love love love. Its breaking and shaping. Its despair and hopelessness. Its solitude and companionship. Its cost, its selflessness, its constant stripping away. Its insistence on holiness, on serving, on carrying another’s burdens. Always the steadiness and unquestionable presence of its devotion.

I give thanks for it all. The rush of the day. The sunlight that strikes through my office window and spreads across my desk. Dances mysteriously over my skin. The voices of students in the hallway. The few moments I get to sit and take in deep breaths before the next class. The joy and difficulty of learning and teaching. All the wonderful books I’ve read these past weeks: Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, and Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, with its infuriating and maddening violence and also its deadly courage and triumph. Right now, I am reading Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, and it is taking me back to the yearning of my adolescence. How much I wanted to be seen and chosen. To belong to someone. I didn’t just want a friend, even then. I wanted a kind of sacred sisterhood, an unfathomable bond. Or maybe I just wanted someone to soothe my young aching heart. I was desperate. My actions screamed Pick me, pick me. Grateful for the quiet contentment blooming within me now. For how the withered years of eagerness and strife have taught me stillness, and the gracefulness of letting go. I confess that now and then I think about the friendship that came to pieces last year. One does not quite forget a death of that kind, do they? It does me no good, but I reach for a spade, and I dig back the memories. I strike the hard earth of all that used to be with painstaking effort. I am searching for something, although I do not know what. I walk away with so many unanswered questions, and behind me, freshly opened wounds gape in the dark. At night, I remember to lay it all down. To leave the weight at the closing door of yet another day. What else can I leave behind? The lingering aches. The weariness in my bones. The harsh words I uttered (more often, against myself) and the dark thoughts I harbored. Anything too sharp that can cut or slit, or spill blood. I say thank You, thank You, thank You, as I close my eyes. I feel the breath in my lungs. Hope flutters in my chest like wings. Love is a mighty wave that washes over me. The day closes up like a flower and not a fist. My touch should be soft, and I should kiss it gently on its flowering lips.