The Gratitude Attitude

What is the number one thing most of us are lacking in our lives? The answer is simple. Gratitude. We push it aside and tell ourselves we'll write in our gratitude journal tomorrow. Or we say thank you robotically in response to people we encounter in public, like when someone holds open a door. Sometimes we forget to say thank you all together for the smallest gestures from others. Pretty common. Sometimes we need reminding, a gentle nudge to say thanks. And not just for the Toyota in the driveway, or the new Mac we just purchased, or the roof over our heads. We have to remember the little things that we overlook every day. For example, this morning I went to the cafe down the street for my morning coffee. An electronic voice rose above the chattering taking place among the morning patrons. It caught my ear and when I looked, I saw an older fellow chatting away with a friend as he was pressing a box to his throat. And I realized, I've never been thankful for having a voice, for good working vocal chords, even if they don't work so well when I try to sing (can't have it all, I guess!). I've never really felt grateful for being able to do something as seemingly simple as speak, when there are those who can't.

I think most of us simply don't realize the value and the life changing qualities of gratitude. Gratitude replaces the sense of lack and brings a whole lot of joy into the daily grind, because the daily grind stops feeling like a grind when there's gratitude. Gratitude is cyclic in that way.

With regards to my art, I often feel a very strong sense of gratitude towards being able to make a living at it, for my talent in general. But that's the operative phrase - "in general". If I look around my studio now, I can see countless smaller things that I take for granted. So I'll start a list, and if you want to add to it with your own list of thanks for the things you might be overlooking, please join me in the comment box! Let's get the gratitude ball rolling!

I'm grateful for:
The Blick Art store just four blocks away. A hop, skip and a jump even on the chilliest, snowiest winter days. I never have to get in a car and drive there, or hop a bus, or take a cab. Just throw on some shoes and head over! Thank you for being there, Blick!

My unending stash of colored pencils. I have income to buy them, plenty of them. They're always waiting to be used, and I often do. But sometimes I neglect them."Use us or we walk", they should be chanting in a colored pencil picket line. Thank you for being there either way, Sepia, Indigo, Pale Blue, and everyone else, and waiting patiently for me!

My stack of papers. Water color, bristol vellum, bristol smooth, printing paper, sketchbooks, construction paper. Without you, paper, I'm nothing! Thank you:)

My desk itself! I sometimes get mad at you because you're not big enough. I remember a time when I was drawing on the floor of my studio apartment! Thank you for being here now, drawing desk!

My eyes. I have two of them and they work very well even after all these years (I've never needed glasses, no small feat considering I've been glued to a 'puter for the past 15 or so years). In fact, I'm beginning to see better than ever before. I like the color. They're hazel. Thank you eyes, for giving me sight. I couldn't draw without you.

My hands. Ok, I find them to be funny looking sometimes, a little rough, not the dainty perfect hands my Mom has which I didn't inherit. But I have them...two of them. There are those who don't. Making art would be quite nearly impossible or at the very least, incredibly challenging without them. Thank you hands!

My ability to read. That's probably something that gets taken for granted more so than anything else. At the least, it's high on the list, if I had to hazard a guess. Many people in the world remain illiterate, and for various reasons, are deprived of the gift of learning to read and write. I cannot thank my grade school teachers enough for sitting in a classroom patiently, day after day, getting me to sound it out, to understand the shapes, the sounds, and the meanings. Then they watched and waited while awkward scribbles transformed into letters into words into sentences. Then there was all the fine tuning, the spelling, the sentence structuring. I can write picture books now because of them. That is no small miracle! Thank you Ms. Dyja, Ms. Colletti, Mrs. Knowles, Ms. Jack, from the bottom of my heart!


So as I said, please share some things you're grateful for in the comment box! Let's inspire gratitude in one another! Thank you!!!!!