It’s easy to notice things when they’ve gone kaflooey, when they’re, somehow, off. Like public transportation, for example, when it’s so crowded you can barely move and it’s hard to breathe. Or when there is a disabled car on the line up ahead and you are stopped, indefinitely, in a tunnel underground somewhere in the middle of who-knows-exactly-where. StoopidRedLine, you may mutter under your breath.
But on the days that the subway or the bus gets you places without a hitch? You get to take it for granted. La la la, oh yeah, the Red Line? The 77? Yep, I take it to work and home every day. I don’t have to park a car. I get to read. I get to eavesdrop on interesting conversations. I get to find out what that lady who can’t stop laughing is reading.
It’s easy to notice a relationship when you’re having a disagreement. You notice how she didn’t look at you. Or, maybe, how she did. You notice how he’s not calling you by that sweetly irreverent name like he used to. Or maybe he’s not calling at all. You miss him, and you feel something snag in the vicinity of your heart. Ow.
But all those other days when you roll over and there he is in all his adorable flesh-n-bones-ness? Those times he calls your name like a line from his favorite song, the one he hums when he’s content? Or when the sight of her makes you grin like a happy fool? Ahh. You get to take this person for granted. Mmm…
It’s easy to notice your body when something hurts. Like when that pain in your neck made you stop short just now when you tried to turn, apparently too quickly, to the right. Or maybe you were bending to pull on your shoes, only to feel your low back seize up and, oh noes! Now it’s hard to stand up straight and you wonder, “is this what they call putting out your back?” Whatever it’s called, it hurts.
But on all those other days when you get out of bed and brush your teeth and lace up your shoes without a second thought? Body? Oh, body! It bends and straightens, turns and returns, stops short and starts up again without a second thought. Not to mention your breathing, which, most of the time keeps happening without any thought or effort on your part. You get to take it for granted.
Right now I’m getting to take for granted this chair, that string of lights, toes, bendy hips, arms, how comfortable it is to have my feet up on the yellow and white looks-handmade-but-turns-out-to-be-from-“just IKEA” bedspread, the empty frame, the sprigs of lavender, the support of the ground, the pull of gravity toward that same solid ground when my thoughts start twirling away a bit anxiously, this here breath, that sigh, and one thing that is so very new that I have not yet had much of a chance to take it for granted: my new office! I love it.
You? Is there something you get to take for granted? How sweet of for you to notice.
Thanks for the reminder. I try to be present enough to notice how many times things go right. As you point out, it’s easier to do the opposite. Right now, I’m thankful for my ears, which let music into my mind.
I love this. Such a sweet reminder. I’ve been having worse shoulder problems lately and worrying about how to fix it, but I’ve also been dancing and loving the support and rhythm and play.