I got stressed, I got overwhelmed. I got bogged down in negativity and frustration. I got lazy in my soul and self-work, losing for a minute my constant striving to live out my beliefs. I forgot what makes this holiday important to me, forgot how much I appreciate this day for stopping us, centering us, asking us to say grace.
As I was walking home from a long day of classes, I suddenly caught myself, saw how I wasn’t being the human I want or strive to be, how I wasn’t living out my beliefs or what makes Thanksgiving an important day.
And so when I got home, I immediately went to our rooftop, just as the sun was setting, with only my journal and a pen, and I said grace.
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Written 25 November 2013
Saying grace:
– thankful to place myself on this rooftop of this house overlooking this sunset on this peninsula of this country of this continent of this map
– thankful for the breeze on my face which renews my energy and gives the days a new sense of possibility
– so, so thankful for family – of birth and of lineage, of love and of care, American and home, Kenyan, Senegalese, and of the basic bro and old friend variety
– thankful for writing and for those who read, grateful for conversation and those who listen
– thankful to still feel those gone alongside me, grateful for their lessons and the way they shape me and my path in the world
– thankful for sudden realizations of fear and for the understanding and stepping stones that come with the acknowledgement of the scariness of taking leaps
– thankful for emotion, for feeling it all and letting it be and for those people and experiences in my life who have taught me to have such gratefulness
– thankful for my grandfather and our treasured friendship, grateful to have the memory of thanksgiving by his bedside close to my heart as I celebrate this year
– thankful for what has carried me and stood beside me as I made my way to this moment, feeling it all, feeling both alone and a family, feeling foreign and at home, to sit on this roof and acknowledge how very much I need to say grace
– thankful for the growth and for the healing that this place and those I feel a family among in it have given me
– thankful for the unifying and c
entering forces this holiday fills me with as I look back through memories of this holiday celebrated at many different tables, in different countries, with many different people surrounding the bowl
I look out over my life – what has been, is, and will be lived – and I feel so full of grace.
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The simplicity of grace has rendered everything so much clearer, such that I find myself approaching this holiday – both celebrated with my American friends and celebrated with my Senegal family – in a manner of deep thankfulness which I haven’t before.
Over the next few days, I plan to say grace.
callie daniels-howell 