I'm grateful for an early morning run in the park. I'm grateful to go to meetings that feel like a warm hug. I'm grateful to be reminded of attraction not promotion as being a means to serve. I'm grateful for chocolate chip cookies and milk. I'm grateful my regular podcasts are back from their Holiday hiatus. I'm grateful for acceptance segueing into serenity. I'm grateful for today's stunning sunrise after last night's storm.
I love Pixar films. While I was certainly the target audience when the first Toy Story released, I didn't truly get roped in till Monsters Inc. in 2001. I remember getting the DVD and thinking: "Man, I will keep this for a long time".
The Pixar love affair lasted for a while - Ratatouille fed into my obsession with Paris, Wall-E became the romantic story I pined for, and Inside Out remains a massive favorite. The premise around sadness being foundational for better understanding one's life hit hard with this alcoholic.
I've missed some of Pixar's recent outings, most notably Soul, which released during the height of the pandemic. I will caveat that I did "watch" it when it first released, but it was during a period where I was in a particularly deep drunken haze. Isolating like we all did in 2020, I resorted to having my vodka bottle on one side and streaming anything in my ears as I gradually blacked out on my bed in order to silence the sound of my own thoughts.
So it was with mixed anticipation that I decided to rewatch Soul this past weekend. TL:DR it was briliant. One scene in particular hit me, here's a still capture of it:
The character Joe, voiced by Jamie Foxx, is observing the small details that surround him in the chaos of NYC. He's ruminating on big ideas like: the beauty in the seemingly mundane, how the disjointed nature of life figures out a way to find harmony, and even if our impact feels small on this earth it still matters. The scene culminates (at least how I remember it) when he sits on a stoop and a maple tree seed gently twirls down like a helicopter onto his palm. It's such a lovingly rendered sequence.
When I watched this I got tingly inside. Tingly as in "oh wow, what's happening feels revelatory". My mind drifted towards AA and life in sobriety. The tenet "one day at a time" resurfaced. How being sober means being aware daily of all that is around me. That awareness returns me to gratitude. The fact that I can turn the shower on each morning and feel warm water when it's super chilly outside is amazing. That I can use my legs to run daily along the East River and watch the currents gracefully make their way to a never ending destination is humbling. That I can reaffirm my spiritual connection by writing and joining meetings on a 1.5 lb device without getting off my sofa is a wonder.
If I take a step back and pause. Pause to let in what has been gifted to me today I have all that I can want and everything else is icing: a life in a city that provides for my needs; a community of people from whom I learn innumerable lessons; a partner and a puppy that remind me of the joys of routine living.
I felt all this from that scene in Soul. There is a lot more I felt too, but I don't find myself adequately equipped to translate those emotions into words at present. I am glad I revisited this movie after side eyeing it for a while since seeing it meant returning to a painful time. However with the strength of sobriety and the language of AA, I got to transform a bleak experience into a teachable moment. I am thankful my sober viewing of Soul hit deep and I found takeaways I could only have because of being in this program. I mean, if I gain so much from rewatching a Pixar movie what else can I look forward to learning with AA by my side?