Welcome, my dears, to Open Mic Friday! Every week we have a featured “reading” in the body of this post. Offer your applause and other feedback in the comments, where you’re also welcome to share your own work. The comments are threaded, so you can reply directly to each reader by hitting the “reply” button within that comment box.
Read, share, and converse!
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This week — which you know has been a rough week in our home — I am deeply grateful to read, and to offer you, this thankful piece by Willona Sloan. This is Willona’s second guest post; read the first one here.
I Am Grateful by Willona Sloan
Last Monday I woke up with tears streaming down my face. I didn’t exactly know why but I had some ideas. Maybe I was dreaming about my broken heart. Or, I was feeling the cold settling into my soul—it’s going to be a long, cold winter. I can sense it.
Maybe it was the disturbing quiet that has hushed my city. Lately, the city has grown silent. I’m probably just noticing it for the first time—it’s probably been there for a couple of years—but there’s a noticeable absence of joyful noise. I suppose everyone is just thinking. The bills are piling up, the stalled economy is keeping more and more qualified people out of work. Some people are even jumping in front of the subway trains.
I’ve been living beyond my means for several years but my ability to pay my bills on time has me looking like a model citizen on paper. But now that I’m reining in my spending, going out less, and saving more, I understand what everyone else is thinking about with their heads down; calculating in their minds; making choices, decisions, sacrifices.
Four years ago, when I was laid off from my job, I cried for two weeks. I had no severance package and only enough savings to get me through 45 days. Then, as always, I fell back on my parents who paid my mortgage and extra bills that I couldn’t cover. I found a job inside of two months. But what if my parents who love me very much hadn’t been able to help me? What if I had been one of those unfortunate homeowners in over her head? I mean, essentially I was as I couldn’t support myself alone.
It’s just by the grace of God (or whomever you believe in) that we have been given the ability, strength, support, perseverance, opportunity, and funding to attain and obtain what we have. But nothing is guaranteed to us. We can take credit for none of it.
This started off in my mind as a Thanksgiving piece and so I will end it as such. Despite the sadness that arrests my sleep and the melancholy that envelops my waking, I am thankful, as I know that this too shall pass.
I am thankful for music and for its ability to fill my soul. I am thankful for my parents, my brother, my aunts, uncles, and cousins; for my ancestors in whose footsteps I attempt to walk. I am thankful for the ideas in my head; for my clarity of mind. I am thankful for a desire to write and my ability to occasionally execute this task in way that brings pleasure to my heart. I am thankful for love and for heartache— whether my heart is full or it is broken, I know that my heart still beats.
I am thankful for the fulfilling friendships that have sustained me throughout my 35 years. I am thankful for smiles, snorty laughs, tears streaming down, sides splitting. I feel grateful for words, language and literature. I am thankful for art that raises the hair on my neck. I am thankful for the gift of taste.
I am grateful for the use of my legs; for my beautiful, safe home; for VONA; for hope; for pride; for confidence; for empathy and compassion. I am thankful that I dream, that I feel, that I cry.
For all these things I am grateful every day.
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Willona Sloan
Willona Sloan is a writer. She lives, dreams, and taps her feet in Washington, DC. You can find her online at dcscorpiongirl.wordpress.com.
Thank you, Willona, for reminding us to savor the abundance in our lives. And now — the comments are open!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
I am grateful for the tastes of ginger and green onions, soy sauce and sesame… chocolate, cinnamon, and walnuts. For the sun, shining like summer; the sky, clear like winter; the air, chill like autumn. For the bright sound of Erik at the piano playing Bach (one of my favorite composers, but not his), making me remember being home on Christmas break and playing preludes and partitas for fun and not because I have to.
I am grateful for the sharp Thanksgiving smell of leeks and celery hot in an oiled pot, the crisp k’ch! of a sharp knife slicing through a Fuji apple, for noodles and bread and butter. For the softness of my comforter when the day is done, for the softness of Lyapa’s fur and the strength of her purr when the day’s barely begun. For fingers and hands and shoulders and ankles and toes, for a spine that stretches and curves.
I am grateful for you, and for me, and for love.
And I add:
I’m incredibly grateful to the vet’s office where we took our cat Tisha’s body on Tuesday — an office we had no relationship with prior to that visit — because we have just received from them a card with Tisha’s pawprint on it. I didn’t know this was a memento I wanted until I had it in my hands, and now I’m weeping with gratitude that someone knew this and did it for us.
I am grateful for this piece. Thank you Willona. Thank you Lisa. Thank you both for reminding me to raise my eyes to the horizon, to look into the face of those who have already died a million times for me, to take solace in the unplanned moments that save our souls.
Here’s to the ancestors that made you both so full of love. Salud!
Susie!
Do you have a blog?
For my students… but maybe soon one for me?
Love to you too, Susie! And if you do start a blog, you can be sure I’ll read and comment. 🙂
I am grateful for my hands, my heart, my mind…for my husband, my family, my friends (and my gerbil!)…for the smell of onions and garlic sizzling on the stovetop as I prepare dinner for my family…for that moment when I wake up and anything is possible…
And I’m grateful to you, Willona, for sharing such a lovely piece that has reminded me of the abundance in my life. 🙂
I love that wake-up moment too. 🙂
wow. you guys blow my minds. thank you! thanks for thinking about what really makes you happy.
The comments on this post are giving me so much peace and joy.
I too am thankful for many “things”, but in direct relaltionship to this blog, I am grateful for the opportunity to observe lively, inquiring, articulate young minds soaring up to meet their potentiality, diving down to experience their humanity. ‘A beautiful and timely piece, Willona. And to Lisa and the others who have commented — right on!
Thank you, Sherry! I love seeing your voice so often in the comments. Love to you 🙂
I’m glad I decided to check on Lisa’s blog link and read this post. Thank you Willona.
This piece particularly timely for me because my Grammie just passed about three days ago. She was 88 years old. I knew she was going to go eventually, but I just didn’t want her to. In any case, she is with me. I feel her everyday and feel her comforting arms around me, asking me to let her be my ancestor. I am grateful to those who have gone before me that watch over me, and continue to move my feet forward on those days when it just seems impossible to do so. I am grateful for the family that will gather in her honor on Thanksgiving Day. For my family members who have tolerated my constant texts over the last three weeks as I have watched Grammie transition from afar. I am grateful to have had a chance to visit with her last week when I passed through Ohio on my way to Milwaukee. I am grateful that she “waited” for me.
I am also grateful for all of my VONA peeps who continue to check in at the right moments. Much love.
Kuukua- Love and prayers to you and your family. It is amazing the way sometimes the love of our people comes to us so strongly without the limitations of the body. I’m happy you’re embracing your grandmother’s spirit, and I know she’ll continue to be an inspiration to you… hugs, girlfriend!
I send my hugs to you too, Kuukua. I’m so glad you got to see your Grammie, and I know she’ll always be with you. Keep movin’ those feet. 🙂 Hope to see you soon so I can give you these hugs in person. Love.