Archive for the ‘gratitude’ Category

Day 30: Community (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by Jennifer on 17th March 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!


“Let there be no purpose in friendship

save the deepening of the spirit.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Tomorrow is the big day and I find myself here with one last opportunity to highlight something from the first 30 years I want to celebrate. The choice has become obvious because as I look back at all of the experiences I have celebrated this last month, I am keenly aware that not a single one of them occurred in isolation. They are centered in community.

One of the difficult tasks of this exercise turned out to be that there were too many things I wanted to include. There were certainly too many people. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me!

My world is filled with individuals and groups of people who have generated so much meaning in my life. There are my best girlfriends, spread around the country; my in-laws, who are among the most welcoming people I have ever met; friends from nursery school through college; my amazing and tremendous coaching colleagues; my neighbors and the strangers who smile on the subway; the family members I didn’t mention and friends whose names did not take the spotlight; and there is you.

I will post tomorrow – on my birthday – from Marrakech, but as I wrap up this series formally, it is with a heart full of gratitude for the fact that every single day of my life has been touched and gifted by my ever-evolving, always organic community.

I have been graced with 30 years of love and it is that – more than anything else – that propels me with eagerness and and an open heart into the next chapter of my life.

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Posted in celebration, change, gratitude, sustainability | No Comments »

Day 11: Flowers (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by Jennifer on 26th February 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

Yup. We’re talking about the kinda flowers a boy gives a girl.

While I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve received flowers from my husband or for theatrical or choral performances, there’s only one time in my life where the act felt like a momentus occasion.

I was 20 years old and having some version of a cross-country relationship with a guy named Erik I’d met over the summer. We exchanged heartfelt letters (yes, letters!) and had the occasional phone call.

I was also in a play that semester and spending plenty of my nights in rehearsal. The day before the play opened was a long one. I’d left my apartment early for class and didn’t return home until close to midnight, when my roommate informed me that the student union had called earlier. There was a package awaiting me.

Never one to turn down a package, I turned right around and walked across campus to the student union where I found the most gorgeous bouquet of sunflowers sitting on the desk.  They were from Erik.

As I’ve said, I’ve received many bouquets of flowers. But this was first time as a woman that I encountered a man going out of his way to express affection for me. I sat up a long time that night enjoying the warm California air – unable to call Erik due to the time difference – feeling tremendously appreciative and delighted. Feeling, for the first time, overwhelmed by the simple pleasures of romance, by the joy at being celebrated by a man.

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Posted in celebration, change, gratitude | 1 Comment »

Irish Melancholy v. Gratitude

Written by Jennifer on 8th January 2010

Awake in the morning feeling down and tending toward monkey mind? In my family, we call it Irish melancholy (although my non-Irish heritage friends swear it’s broader than that).

And so this morning, I awoke feeling agitated. I knew it could be a case of the Irish melancholies. Or something deeper.

Regardless, I was in no mood to figure out the “why” of this agitation. I do a lot of internal processing and today I just wanted to feel better. Leave the processing for another time. If it’s something deeper, it’ll surely find a way to get my attention again in no time.

My brain began turning. Would yoga do the trick? Yes, but I’m not really in the mood. A walk? Yes, but it’s cold and snowy and I’m really digging the warmth of my bathrobe.  Gratitude? Yes, and this would be easy!

Since I tend to run a wee bit late when it comes to thank-you cards, I thought, “Hey, if I write my Christmas thank-yous right now, I bet I’ll feel like a million bucks.” Why put off until February what can make me feel better today, right?

And I was correct. Writing a few thank-yous did the trick. By taking a few minutes to share my gratitude for the thoughtfulness and generosity of others, I settled into my day, sans agitation.

Expressing gratitude is absolutely a gift to others. And it’s important for that reason. It’s an even bigger gift to ourselves. Somehow this focus on what is good in life or on what we appreciate about another person creates a mystical shift inside and makes our world a little bigger and our experience of it a lot safer. And today, it made me happier. Take that, Irish melancholy!

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Eternal Ephemera

Written by Jennifer on 24th November 2009

Most of us have those boxes – old shoeboxes or plastic bins the size of small trunks – that get filled up with the ephemera and memorabilia of our lives. The medals we won doing the backwards crab walk at Field Day in the 3rd grade; the Girl Scouts uniform with a sash full of patches; the scholarship essays that resulted in bonds that will be worth face value by the time Medicare kicks in.

And for me, during a recent basement organization project, it also included pained poems written by my teenaged self and love letters from my very first boyfriend.

I’ll spare myself (and that first boyfriend) from sharing the details of said ephemera here. I will offer, however, that which was most fascinating to me, most surprising about what I’d written: the person I am now, I was then and the person I was then, I am now.

I have long believed that life is not only a process of creation, but one of discovery and I am more convinced of that now than ever before. Underneath the teenage experience and angst in my journals and poetry is some core part of the same person who shows up today to write this blog. I am certain it is the same person who will (I hope) one day write about what she’s experiencing in 2045.

As I find myself nearing this Thanksgiving holiday, I am surprised to note that I feel most thankful for the simple fact that I am me. Not because of what I have or what I’ve done or who I know – although I could fill tomes with gratitude for those things. And not in spite of all my shortcomings and limitations. I am thankful because there’s this essential, unchanging part of me that is amazing.

Last week, I had the opportunity to see that very first boyfriend and I copied two of those love letters and returned them to him. While the letters were addressed to me, they speak volumes about who he was, who he no doubt still is. It is my hope that they offer him a window into his own beautiful self and that he feels gratitude for that essential, unchanging part of who he is.

May you, too, celebrate with much thanks the beautiful person you are. What a tremendous gift!

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Posted in authenticity, gratitude, happiness, holidays | 3 Comments »

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