Waves of Gratitude

I've been feeling waves of gratitude the past few days, been feeling them building for the past weeks. Things are shifting over here, over here with my sailboat heart. My apartment is amidst another turnover and I chopped off all of my hair again. Both of which, if you know me, you know means something regarding internal structures, as well. I've just finished my MFA portfolio, Structures of Hope, which was accepted (with even some accolades), much to my delight and relief. Which means graduation and looking for work, and figuring out what life has in store for me next. So, new and exciting things are afoot.

There's also been hard change. My uncle passed unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. The renewed and deeper contact with family is a major source of those waves of gratitude. I've been feeling a lot of love, and really feeling the connections that span miles, the threads of how our hearts are entwined with one another. It's hard, though, to know what to do for my cousins who have lost their father, or for my own father, for whom I feel so much love that it sometimes catches in my throat when I hear his grief. This week he experienced another episode of heart trouble. He had a major heart attack a few years back, a smaller one a few months ago, and now this, whatever this undefined thing is. He seems fine. But the news sounds like a clock ticking in my ear. It makes my gut knot up thinking about how unready I am to lose him. I've come close with both of my parents, but somehow they're still here. I feel some guilt of privilege, knowing that it's pretty much a lottery, but I'm not dumb enough to let it overshadow the deep gratitude I feel for the fact that they are still here.

With my mother it's understood. She's always been able to read my mind. She knows my heart; I know hers. But with my father it's different. Sometimes I think he doesn't know how important he is to me, how the very roots of my life are entangled with his, how much I still need my father, how much I still need him. I want to figure out how to put it on paper, draw a key to the map so he can see it, so he can read it by the light of day, return to it at any hour. I feel an urgency to give him something to hold in his hands, something that makes it concrete. I want to know that he knows.

The waves of gratitude are changing the shore. I feel it. I feel expanded. I feel love.

And my man with the tugboat heart, I'm deeply grateful for him too, for his countless hours of cheering me through the portfolio over the past months, his hours of sitting with me, listening to me, loving me. At times his kindness and graciousness overwhelms me. We're building a way of loving each other that feels... well, I'm at a loss for words to describe it. It's good, and whole, and wide.

This is all just a tiny thank you note to the world, and to you.