Gratitude Thursday

As has become my occasional habit when I tend to run low on inspiration, I fall back on the good old gratitude day to tide me over until something else grabs my attention. Today is one of those days.

I am grateful that I woke up this morning. I rediscovered a new little nook at a slightly different time of the day, and this is what I saw.

Anacostia Waterfront at Daybreak with the USS Barry

I am grateful for the visionaries, the financiers, and the people with a dream that have transformed Southeast Washington, DC from a run-down, crime blighted area into something that is going to be truly stunning and mostly publicly accessible. It already is very nice, and I'm looking forward to attending summer concerts in "The Yards" park. They were good last year, but they will be particularly interesting this year when the water access via the new recreational boating docks are finished.

The Yards Park Bridge framing the Setting Moon on the Anacostia

I'm grateful to have been born in a country brimming with opportunity.

I'm grateful for the freedom to fail and still manage a recovery in relatively short order.

I'm grateful that I'm learning that happiness is a choice and is within the grasp of just about anyone. This is a lesson that I had heard, but I've finally gotten enough life experience to begin to feel the truth of it.

I'm grateful for the folks at work that put up with my speechifying, passionate outbursts, and even my brief stints of moodiness.

I'm grateful for a budding spiritual connection to the larger universe, the fact that walking has made this transition local and not overwhelming, and being surrounded by a group of seekers that are pursuing this connection in their own way.

I'm grateful that I finally learned to skip the television and get out of the house and start living.

I'm grateful for working cats.

For a day that felt a bit bereft of inspiration, I'm grateful to be able to fall back into this occasional part of my daily practice and come out on the other side feeling inspired. This gratitude thing really works, and as always, I'm looking forward to what tomorrow may reveal.

Looking for Beauty

Today on my morning walk, I was listening to a TED Talk listed under the broad category of Beauty that centered on happiness and how humans related to this particular feeling.  As TED products go, this one was middle of the road for me in terms of inspiration, but the speaker did address an interesting result from a study associated with happiness in relationships. Apparently, one of the conclusions of the study was that it took five positive comments for every one negative comment for people involved in a relationship to characterize that relationship as happy. The speaker's thesis was that this skewed result is due to the fact that we, as humans, are hypersensitive to negative input as a survival mechanism. This survival technique was really very useful out on the plains 10,000 years ago, but it is less valuable now when physical survival is not nearly the front and center concern that it once represented.

Later during the walk, I was talking to Rory, and he suggested that he'd awakened and was a bit down in the dumps. We talked about that for awhile, and eventually, he got around to asking me one of his standard questions in the wee hours before twilight. "What are you looking forward to at work today?"

I've been doing the same job for about two years now, and the bulk of my actions are mostly associated with keeping bad things from happening. It's important work, but if I'm honest, it's not very inspiring work.  It is the day to day attention to detail that I'm pretty good at executing.  It'a also a far cry from what I'd characterize as being an exploration, experiment, or adventure. I've known periods where all of my existence seemed like one, two, or even all three of those things. Those periods were both exhilarating and intensely rewarding. Working the problems using my wits, knowledge, and sometimes brawn (such that it is) and dexterity against unknown odds in the face of uncertainty is what I always imagined I was training to do when I was growing up.

Alas, things aren't always high adventure, but right now the truth of the matter is that I'm not going out of my way to look forward to much of anything at work. The things I look forward to facing are the walks, the learning through reading and listening to smart people, jogging, creating something new, experimenting in the kitchen, etc. My work now facilitates my ability to do the things that I look forward to doing.  I do look forward to getting out on a ship underway for trials and any opportunity to travel, but that's about it as far as work is concerned.

In response to Rory's question, I asked him what sort of beauty he expected to encounter today. He said, "Good question. I don't think I've ever put that much thought into that before. I'll have to think about it."

Moonset on the Anacostia

Since I started walking, I think about encountering and appreciating beauty on a regular basis now. The recognition of beauty started slowly at first over a year ago, but I've found that once I started observing it all around me, it was almost impossible for me to not approach the observation and appreciation in a deliberate manner.  I find that unlike the speaker suggested in the TED Talk, I'm less sensitive to negative situations, and I'm more attuned to positive circumstances. Looking for beauty has changed the way I view the world and my life is much better for the happy accident that evolved into a deliberate seeking of the goodness that flows all around us.

Sunrise over the Anacostia

Today I saw beauty in the moonset and sunrise over the Anacostia River. I also saw beauty in the architecture, air, dogs, fellow humans, and some pretty sweet cars in between these two events during the course of my walk.

I even recognized beauty in the chuckle brought on by a joke, and the happiness shining from the face of a newly married bride and groom as I ground out the pedestrian (no pun intended) task of oiling the gears of the bureaucracy to make sure they kept grinding along.

I don't know what I'll encounter tomorrow, but I am looking forward to and seeking the beauty.

Sharing, Soaring, Serene

This morning and opportunity presented itself to sit down with a group of friend and speak frankly about some of my past experiences, some things that happened to change the direction I was taking, what that's led to, and what there was to learn during that time.

It's always been a little uncomfortable for me to share those kind of details, even in a general way, with other people.  Fear is probably the root of the reluctance, but it's not a knee melting sort of fear.  Whatever the source of the reluctance, I tend to feel better after I've stepped up to the facts and vocalized them out loud.

The get together took a little longer than planned, so my commute to work was delayed as well.  There is a reason for everything, and on my way to work, later in the day than I had planned, the universe rewarded me with a sighting of an adult bald eagle in flight.

Adult Bald Eagle in Flight above US Highway 50

Fate smiled on me further and allowed me to capture an over the shoulder shot out of my driver side window of the magnificent raptor.  Once again, the picture above does not quite do the sight that I saw justice, but I continue to be amazed by the quality of photography possible on a device about half the size and volume of a short paperback novel.  Here's the whole shot that I captured for a bit of context regarding the quality of the image capture seen in the blown up shot above.

Adult Bald Eagle in Flight above US Highway 50

The eagle is the v-shaped speck above and slightly to the right of the power pole near the center of the picture.

Although this was during my driving commute, I did get in the goal distance associated with my pedestrian activity.  The evening ramble saw me out the doors at work a little later than hoped for, and surprise awaited me when the lingering colors of the setting sun were still vivid enough to capture in pixels.

The Colors of Sunset as a Backdrop a Skyline in Southeast DC

This picture was taken on my trip to the car to drop off my gym back before hitting the asphalt in earnest.  With the dark hue of the colors, I did not expect to be able to capture anything else during the evening.  Again, I was surprised.

Sunset to be followed shortly by Moonset Over the Anacostia

Fetching the river, the universe dealt me a celestial twofer. The setting of the sun to be quickly followed by the setting of the moon had been all teed up for my viewing enjoyment.

Later tonight at home, the news of the attacks in Paris that were happening at about the same time as the last two photos were being taken made its way into my consciousness.  I struggle to come to terms with the beauty and the sadness that were unfolding under the same sky. I mention the bloodshed in Paris because I think that I should.  There's a lesson here somewhere, but I don't know what that lesson is right now.  I do know that in spite of the chaos that unfolded a hemisphere away, a sense of serenity in my here and now has proven pretty resilient.  I'm grateful for that.