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With Thanksgiving coming in a few short days, I\u2019ve been thinking about what I am grateful for.<\/p>\nWith Thanksgiving coming in a few short days, I\u2019ve been thinking about what I am grateful for.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve tried not to let disappointment over the election or the fact that Christmas shopping started before Halloween diminish my gratitude for things I enjoy in my daily life.<\/p>\n
The regular meeting of my book discussion group is such a pleasure to me.<\/p>\n
Four or five of us meet at one member\u2019s house about every six weeks. A visitor might be \u201czoomed\u201d in. The host serves a light dinner and gets to select the book. \u00a0It\u2019s typical for us to share some wine, although drinking is not the feature of the evening.<\/p>\n
I could read any time, but there\u2019s something about knowing I will be sharing my thoughts with others that gives me an extra incentive to finish the book. I might not vibe with every author or book choice, but I always get something out of the discussion and appreciate sharing this forum with several gal pals.<\/p>\n
I relish my turn choosing a book. (I\u2019m pro-choice about most everything.) Maybe I\u2019ll go with a book I\u2019ve read about or something by an author whose other books I\u2019ve liked or choose based on a friend\u2019s recommendation.<\/p>\n
The Oscar Wilde quip that \u201cLife imitates art\u201d was top of mind during my experience with Lost and Found, <\/strong>a memoir by Kathryn Schulz, Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the New Yorker<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I always likened the expression to the \u201cWhich came first, the chicken or the egg?\u201d dilemma.\u00a0 Yes, art imitates life in that art is not life.\u00a0 It is representational. But life seems to imitate art in that the truth contained in art is part of everyone\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n The book is a memoir about a time in Schulz\u2019s life when she was both a loving witness to her beloved father\u2019s dying process and beginning a relationship with the person who would turn into her life partner.<\/p>\n What a great reminder, that grief and joy can be experienced at the same time, each with profound gratitude. And the artistry of words strung together by someone who speaks from her own experience as she speaks for everyone is incredible.<\/p>\n As a writer myself, I have contemplated and frequently journaled around some of the topics Schulz raises around \u201closs\u201d (only halfway through the book, I can\u2019t comment on her insights about \u201cFound\u201d yet).<\/p>\n During my college years, I wrote a story called \u201cThe Land of Lost Things.\u201d\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know about L. Frank Baum\u2019s \u201cValley of Lost Things\u201d from his Dot and Tot of Merryland.<\/strong><\/p>\n Like Baum, I populated a world I created with wallets and keys, watches, currency and other personal objects that were lost or misplaced. I even created a building that was filled with the sounds of things toppling over representing lost balance.<\/p>\n Stimulated by Schulz\u2019s pondering on how people grieve small losses, I thought about modern life (Maybe we have too many objects to keep track of), self-judgment (the tendency to view misplacing something as a huge personal failing), and diminished abilities that come with aging.<\/p>\n During the week, when I was reading the section titled \u201cLost,\u201d I decided to treat myself to a pedicure.\u00a0 I only do this a few times a year, in part because I lost<\/em><\/strong> the body flexibility that made doing a good job easy.<\/p>\n While I was paying my bill, I noticed a small basket with a low-end water bottle a couple keys on a ring and a gray collapsible umbrella. I thought, I used to have an umbrella like this, nicer than a dollar store model but not too expensive. It made it back from Spain where I vacationed last fall only to become separated from me in my neighborhood. Somewhere.<\/p>\n Could this be my lost gray umbrella? I scoured my car and closet yet one more time.\u00a0 No evidence that my raingear was anything but lost. The thought ran over and over in my head.\u00a0 No, the one in the nail spa couldn\u2019t be mine.\u00a0 Could reuniting with something lost be as simple as stop looking and pay attention?<\/p>\n After three days of ruminating on this, I drove to my neighborhood nail salon. The diminutive Asian woman behind the counter was quick to confirm my appointment time.\u00a0 Instead, I explained that I had a pedicure earlier in the week and saw their lost and found bin, that it contained an umbrella that looked like one I used to have, that it must have been months since I was last in.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s been here for months. Take it. Take it,\u201d the woman said.\u00a0\u00a0 And I did.<\/p>\n Life imitates art. I can\u2019t wait to tell my book group pals.\u00a0 My feelings turned buoyant. I concluded that a person can re-claim some things that are assumed to be lost. Following Schulz\u2019s lead, I pronounced these kinds of contemplations rich.<\/p>\n Having books or podcasts or friends that encourage you to THINK, not tell you what to think, and a group of people to share your perspectives with, is no small thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With Thanksgiving coming in a few short days, I\u2019ve been thinking about what I am…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[632],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-blog","grateful-dozen-belonging"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n