I’m grateful for all of the opportunities. I’m grateful for bopping down the subway escalators. I’m grateful for spring. I’m grateful for train rides. I’m grateful to be sober today.
I’m very, very fortunate to live in a place where I’m surrounded by beautiful views. You see, too often probably, one of those views in the picture above. Maybe my favorite one is the one I have sitting at my desk, like I am when I write this (usually). It might not be considered classically beautiful, as it includes some pretty quotidian bridge columns, steam stacks and the top of the sanitation facility at 91st Street.
It also features a view of an island that could, possibly, perhaps, highly allegedly belong to me.1 There is another smaller island in the foreground, definitely large enough to sustain a decent-sized campsite, and, so far as I know, currently unnamed.2 I’ve watched a lot of sunrises from exactly this vantage point; in the summer, the sun comes up directly over the smokestacks, which I always think is funny.3
My beloved NYC ferry, which docks at 90th Street, swings though the view, as the boats from Astoria make the big curve to line up with the dock. I love the ferry, by the way, and am a frequent, frequent and super-enthusiastic rider. The commute from and to my office can be a brisk 25 minutes when efficiently utilizing the fabulous NYC subway; the ferry is never the most efficient mode of travel. And yet, as it does involve a boat against the current and I sometimes feel as though I’m borne back ceaselessly into the past, it makes a ton of sense.4
Is this going to be about the Great Gatsby? No, but it could be as I very much love that book. I mean, I could go down this kind of road: what we do, in every life we lead, is reframe the world around us. I don’t think we see the world around us in the same way. I think we have different sensations, feelings, see different colors, hear different combinations of sounds. A sun on the horizon can be rising or setting, happy or sad. Jay Gatsby, Daisy, too, were skilled at reframing the world around them, reframing not just their own views, but the way others saw them.
But, that’s very heavy and gets awkward really quick. I think gratitude is what this probably ought to be about. I know I’ve written quite a bit about the transformative power of gratitude, but what gratitude does, when exercised frequently and allowed to grow, untethered to a particular time or location, is reframe the world. At least that’s what it did for me.
I think that gratitude is thrumming along at the frequency that runs the universe, the force that binds us together and also sets us spinning on very different tangents and paths, sometimes crossing others’ multiple times and in multiple places. It seems random, and I’m not sure true randomness is really understood most of the time and certainly not found very often, but I don’t think it is random.
I think we notice things and people around us, exactly when we need to. I don’t think the underlying purpose is ascertainable, or maybe even knowable. But I think tuning into the gratitude frequency is what connected me to the things that were supposed to happen. This is a good thing, because, as you know, I believe that the things that are supposed to happen, generally do happen. Just not in ways, or places or situations where they were expected. I think gratitude, when allowed to outgrow the 5-minute exercise in the morning, is what changes the world around me. Of course, that’s my view, the only thing and the most important thing that changed was me and my view of the world.
Gratitude reframed the world for me. Things that hurt, things that left me feeling empty and sore, carried very important lessons and understandings. Gratitude is what let me see that beginnings weren’t possible without endings; and that “endings” are just artificial constructs that this alcoholic brain is good at spinning out. The atoms keep colliding and everything keeps vibrating and the world keeps spinning, no matter what I do. My job is to let the things that are supposed to happen, happen.
Maybe the hardest part about getting sober, at least for me, was finally coming to believe that I could be myself and that things would be fine. Better than fine, actually. When I was myself, the things that were meant for me seemed to happen and things that weren’t, gave me chances to learn grace. I used to think that life was about hanging on, working hard to maintain what I had, what I determined I needed. But, of course, it’s more about letting go of that and accepting what comes next.
Gratitude, especially on those clenched-teeth mornings, where the list seems a touch passive aggressive, a little bit preachy, even, well, that’s the rubber meeting the road, the work getting done. It’s the practice of having to find gratitude for the things that I very much did not want to happen, that has ultimately set me on what sure seems like the right path. Because that’s all I can really know. Ask me tomorrow, there could be adjustments that are necessary.
Finding things to be grateful for on the heart-broken mornings, the empty mornings, showed me that there was always a way forward and that I usually had exactly what I needed. Finding things to be grateful for on those mornings ultimately let me start to see that maybe there was a purpose to things. Not that things are fore-ordained, but what needs to happen, seems to happen. When I let it.
This is the tricky part. My alcoholic brain almost always got the question about what I “needed” wrong. The things I thought were necessary, largely weren’t. I had to let things happen, tolerate the fear and uncertainty (which is always there anyway, because I know that I can’t control the world around me and never have been able to) that comes with not knowing what comes next, but staying ready for what that might be.
I think the view from my desk hits me because it’s what I was looking at while I let my actual life come into view. The most important part of my recovery, I think, has been the writing that I’ve done over the last several years (this does coincide pretty nicely with my sobriety) and that writing has been informed and driven by the gratitude list I crank out every single, freaking morning.
There was no magic ferry-dust (misspelling intentional) involved in my life over the last four-and-a-half years. There was and has been a tremendous amount of magic in my life over that same span and I think gratitude is what let me finally see exactly how magical that life is. The most magical moment is the one that usually comes right after the moment that I thought was the least magical —kind of like that darkest before the dawn.
The great thing about my view is that it is always changing. The great thing about the ferry and the East River and the whole boat against the current mode of life: The East River is technically a tidal estuary and the current changes direction. Meaning, I’m not condemned to be borne ceaselessly into the past, I’m here, ready for the next moment. Another thing to be grateful for.
I would provide more detail except there are complications arising out of the Alcoholics Anonymous tradition relating to anonymity.
I think it’s always wise to see the potential area of compromise as early as possible.
I don’t know, why don’t you think that’s funny?
I hope you followed that.
I couldn't fully understand how the saltwater or fresh water fish knew when to draw the line at our estuary. Grateful you remind me the importance of gratitude, it certainly changes my view especially when the hard moments float by. Congrats on 4.5 yrs!!!