9/18/17
i'm thankful that d bought me a new kindle as a surprise after i broke my old one a few weeks ago. i'm thankful that yesterday evening i read a novel successfully for the first time in what feels like a long time. i'm thankful for the novel, which is called when the english fall and is told from the perspective of an amish farmer/carpenter who watches the world fall after a solar storm crashes the power grid. i'm thankful that though it was not what i call a great novel (and ended in a very annoying premature way! i'm thankful for the "such small portions" joke from annie hall), i was still grateful for it because reading it (in basically one sitting) was a reminder that i can enter the world of a novel and then come out the other side, that this is a skill i still have. i'm thankful that this is a muscle i can strengthen.
Then it grew so bright that it was brighter than midnight under a full moon, bright enough to see my hand, to see the house. Angel wings dipped, radiant with color, and touched the earth. There was a feeling of strangeness in the air, I do not know what it was, but the hairs on my arm rose. From fear, perhaps because it was strange, but also because the air seemed sharp with...something. I do not know. But the smell changed"
i'm thankful that during dinner last night we watched the first two episodes of the first season of search party, a show which i had similarly mixed feelings about but for which i still felt gratitude and appreciation. i'm thankful that even in works of art i deem less than perfect, there are almost always moments which i think are resonant or beautiful or powerful. i'm thankful for the performance of alia shawkat in search party, which is so rich and sad and true and which, when the girls reject brooklyn millennial asshole parody secondary characters are absent, makes me feel real things. i'm thankful in when the english fall for this description of the solar storm:
"And on the third night, the angels came and filled the heavens
"And on the third night, the angels came and filled the heavens
...
It was just darking, the last colors of the sun vanishing, the first stars showing, the light of the town brightening
...
And then they came. A flicker here, and a flicker there, color danced in the sky. Then sheets of it, brighter and brighter, dancing wild sheets cast across the skies, beautiful purples and blues and pinks.
The sky became full of them, dancing, waving, and pulsing. They would fade a little, and strengthen, and then grow stronger and stronger.
The sky became full of them, dancing, waving, and pulsing. They would fade a little, and strengthen, and then grow stronger and stronger.
...
Hannah came, and Jacob, and we watched together, as the wings of angles lit the skies, and the earth glowed under the warm light. Jacob laughed and pointed and jumped around at the joy of it.
Then it grew so bright that it was brighter than midnight under a full moon, bright enough to see my hand, to see the house. Angel wings dipped, radiant with color, and touched the earth. There was a feeling of strangeness in the air, I do not know what it was, but the hairs on my arm rose. From fear, perhaps because it was strange, but also because the air seemed sharp with...something. I do not know. But the smell changed"
i'm thankful in that book also for the focus on material scarcity. i'm thankful to have been reminded that i am not thankful enough for the comfort that i live in every day. i'm thankful for the clean sheets on our bed and i'm thankful that our house is cool when it's hot outside and will be warm when it's cold. i'm thankful that safe cold water comes out of the faucets and that our refrigerator and freezer and oven and stove work and we can afford to run them. i'm thankful for electric light, for modern medicine, for television and internet. i'm thankful for the expensive rocky road ice cream that d and i ate last night. i'm thankful for the existence of marshmallows.
i'm thankful, when adding books to new kindle, to have dipped into the ebook i made of the first year of these notes. i'm thankful to have been struck by how much more physical and narrative my notes were back then, when i commuted to work in an office every day and interacted with so many people's bodies and voices. i'm thankful in those notes for how (while avoiding breaching student privacy rules), i was much more specific about what exactly happened in the average workday than i am now, partly because i think events and images in the physical world brand themselves into our brains more firmly than the exchanges of bits between us. i'm thankful that i think those notes are more interesting than these notes, which are much more about thoughts and feelings.
i'm thankful to have felt nostalgic about that, but i'm thankful to be happier to have this job, even though it makes me feel anxiety sometimes (always on monday morning, a thrum under these words) and i take my work home with me more and it pushes me to my limit much more than my old job did and i have actual challenging work i'm always doing so can't do things like spend 4 hours of my workday on writing the notes, as i did often in my office job. i'm thankful for all those things, even though they don't sound good, because this job allows me to imagine a future that i couldn't imagine with my old job. i'm thankful that at this stage of my life, being able to imagine a future feels important.
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