Our daily thanks

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane.  The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat.  “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks.  “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

David Sedaris

Life, whether we agree with it or not, is a series of compromises and tough decisions.  Sometimes, the best we can do is make the least bad decision, and move on.  We might not like Option A and think less of Option B; but we have to choose one, and see how it all works out.  We nod and agree to things we wouldn’t have dreamt of in our 20s and 30s, and we try to make the best of it.

I’m happy with some of my recent decisions. 

For example, I’m happy that I only fly once a year, or less if I can help it.  Aviation is a major contributor to the climate crisis, and as only 1% of the world’s population are frequent flyers, it feels like a no-brainer to make the decision to fly less.  I am also aware that my action won’t make a hill of beans of difference to the effects of the crisis, and that I won’t ever convince even one person not to fly as much.

But I like to do it, it makes me happy, and it makes me smile.

We know when we’ve made a good decision, as we feel it in our bones.

Another example of an excellent and wise decision would be my recent choice to buy a late Victorian style, stone bird bath for the back garden.  It’s so beautiful and intricate, and it brings me joy.  I’ve placed it in the middle of the garden, so that birds can hop into the hedgerow for safety, and it’s wide open enough for the songbirds to spot predators.

So far only one tiny bird has used it, but I hope it will gain popularity as the summer progresses.

We know in our hearts and heads when we’ve made a terrible decision too. 

We feel those all over our bodies and we can ruminate and regret for decades.  By this rationale then, perhaps it’s OK sometimes, to make the least bad decision, and then not ponder it afterwards. 

“It was the best call at the time!” we will say to ourselves. 

I’m currently making a large, life-decision and I honestly don’t care for any of the options.  Option one is a bland, unappetising chicken that looks very dry and undigestible.  Option two is a platter of shit with broken pieces of glass in it.  I don’t have a time machine in my pocket, so I’m going to have choose one option and wait and see…

Perhaps we have too many options.

A thousand and one posts an hour, on social media, show me where to view the best sunrise, how to lose weight, where to see pregnant squirrels and how to stop a genocide.  I watch my life scroll on by, daily unfolding one image at a time.  It takes more than a breath to slow it all down, and it speeds on relentlessly, no matter the decisions I make.

Sometimes, when I’m watching the birds ignoring my new bird bath, or on the boat trip between Ireland and Wales, I see it all as it was meant to be.

Tranquil, still, peaceful, perceptibly moving on and in harmony with our motion.  In times, perhaps a sequence and a rhythm known, since the beginning and felt in our heartbeat.

This is it.

This is my life.

I can manage each challenge before me, of course I can.

Feel the wonder and the pain.

It’s there in the Irish sea sometimes, when land is out of sight and there’s just the water and the sky, that the grandness and the beauty of this world makes me so grateful. 

My life with the raw bits, and I’m grateful. 

Through salty tears, I give thanks to something wilder than the waves, further than the clouds, more spectacular than the seagulls, chasing the light.

That we move through our transitions and become.  That this journey is the reason, and we take our warm blessings, and give thanks.

Our daily thanks.