Tuesday Night Grumble and Gratitude

I was going to just grumble grumble grumble. Grumble about that silly movie Green Room winning the Oscar for Best Picture (see my very early dis of it here), grumble about the Bird Photographer leaving town for a week, grumble about all the dumb shit and people we have to put up with who are supposed to be running the country, grumble about always feeling like I need to lose some pounds but knowing that I'll probably never lose some pounds, grumble about doing my taxes and figuring out how to pay for not one but two children in college, grumble about still not having a good doctor to take Sophie to for general issues, grumble about the state of my house, how it's overflowing with books unread and the stack of papers that make up my manuscript that will, perhaps never get written. Grumble, grumble, grumble. The Catholic Church, Paul Manafort, The Methodist Church, sex trafficking, the mediocrity of culture, obscenely rich people -- the grumbles are rolling.

You wanted to hear that, right?

Here's the thing. Despite that silly movie winning, there were a host of truly beautiful, mind-blowing films that should have won it, and I'm grateful for having seen those movies and beyond grateful that there are artists in the world with vision and grace and bravery doing their work. Despite the Bird Photographer leaving me to go shoot birds (with a camera not a gun) in another state, I'm grateful to be partnered with such an extraordinarily talented and sweet man who is doing what he loves best, observing beauty, making beauty. Despite the state of Terrible America, I am grateful for investigative reporters that continue doing their work informing us, digging deep, and I'm grateful to have a brain that is willing to dig deep and wrap itself round difficult things and parse them out. Despite needing and wanting to lose weight, to look like I did twenty-five years ago, I'm grateful to have this strong body that on its best days can lift a 75 pound woman, can walk up a hill to an overlook and gaze out on a shining city with snow-capped mountains and blue skies behind and above it. This body can love, and I'm grateful for that, too. Despite the horror of going through my medical expenses and all the other paperwork I need to do, including just facing the numbers, the dismal numbers, I'm grateful that I finally have a great job that I love. Despite the existential threat to my sanity that thinking about BOTH sons off and away from me in the fall, I am so grateful that they are such fantastic beings with their whole lives ahead of them. Plus, they're damn cute. Despite the tedium of finding a doctor for Sophie and the grappling with CTSS (chronic traumatic stress syndrome), I am grateful that she is doing well on her current regimen of CBD and IVIG, and that she has such a terrific aide at her adult day program. In fact, I think you need to see a recent photo of  the girl:

 Here she is contemplating Art.

And here she is contemplating the Bird Photographer:

Despite the cluttered house, the books to be read and the books to write, I am grateful to be surrounded by all of it, all of it, to have so much beauty in my life, so much love, so much for which to be grateful.

The end.