"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful." -- Buddha
One of my Yoga teachers dedicated this evening's Yin Yoga class to the "Attitude of Gratitude". She admonished us to focus a little bit less on what we find wrong with the world, the people around us and even ourselves. Rather, we should focus more on the things we are grateful for. The world is not a perfect place, and the things we think are wrong will not stop being viewed as wrong by merely refocusing on the things for which we are grateful. But such refocusing my place the former in perspective, and ease the suffering a bit. Maybe even give us some joy.
So, during class I began to think about the things for which I have gratitude. I was not surprised by the fact that, in a flash, what came to my mind is "women". I have always been dependent on the kindness of women. I am very grateful for women. More specifically . . .
I am grateful for the women who have loved me during my adult life. They have loved me notwithstanding my glaring flaws, the many terrible things I have put them through, my selfishness, my callousness, my meanness, my insanity, my darkness. Some have been simply great friends, and have provided the love of friendship. While others have been both friend and lover. And most of the latter remained my friend long after we ceased being lovers. I am grateful for the fact that they had more common sense than I did, and knew I was not good husband or father material. Mistakes were avoided. I know I cause them pain and sorrow, yet they loved me and, I suspect, still do in many ways. I am grateful for the fact that it is with women only have I every been able to let my guard down, and experience moments of calm and peace and a little happiness. "[G]ood wine, good music, beautiful women; that is all there is worth turning over the hand for." Willa Cather, Double Birthday. I am also grateful for the women who did not love (or even like) me, for they teach me humility.
I am grateful for the fact that I had a mother who, notwithstanding her faults, was/is a strong intelligent woman, who loved me very much and trained me well. And who loved me even when I broke her heart by going away, as a son must. It is from my mother I get my independence and self-sufficiency. I am my mother's son, and am the better man for it. It is from my mother that I have a preference for strong, intelligent women, and for women capable of great conversation. "Woman who do something, achieve something, strong women." --Andrea Dworkin. And for that I am most grateful.
I am grateful to one Sister Jean Carroll, who taught me mathematics in seventh and eighth grade, and cultivated my love of numbers. She was also the first woman with whom I fell in love with. School boy's crush? Perhaps. Yet I still feel the tugging on my heartstrings.
I am grateful for my all-male catholic high school deciding to be radical and hire two women my senior, one of whom, a Miss Ryan, I had for English Literature. She opened my world. And she made me a pushover for any woman with a reading list, or a subscription to The New Yorker.
I am grateful to the philosopher Vivian Weil whose courses I told my senior year of college, and who was instrumental in my pursuing my doctorate in philosophy. Though I am not a philosopher (a PhD in Philosophy does not a philosopher make), the training in philosophy is something I draw upon daily in simply trying to understand the extremely complicated world and times in which we live.
I am thankful for having the opportunity to be classmates, co-workers, or simply comrades-in-crime, with some brilliant women. From them I learned much.
I am grateful for my three yoga teachers, who shall remain nameless in this blog. Each in her own way is providing this mangy mutt with physical, mental and emotional challenges. I may not be up to the challenges, but it is the trying that matter. I am grateful for them taking enough of an interest to get me to want to try.
But mainly, again, I am simply grateful for women. Flawed as all human are flawed, they have often saved my soul. A debt unpaid. A debt unpayable.
"'Used to say there was four women in every man's heart. The Maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted Woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman. It was just a thing he said. I don't know what it means. I don't know where he got it'" E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News.
