Walk on Air

Little philosopher's school photo

Halloween chocolate AND election stress… 
 
For that addictive circle, we can thank the mostly-forgotten President James Polk, who set the first Tuesday in November as Election day in 1845 (because it was mostly farmers voting, and market day was Wednesday).  In fairness to the Polkster, the election sugar/stress addiction is not his fault: trick or treating would not be a thing in America for another 87 years, and even in 1932, they gave out apples. 
 
On Wednesday, I call my 83-year old mother and she blithely says, “Oh, don’t mention politics.” “What?! This election is -”  “Don’t bother to think about politics, because you can’t change anything.”  “Sure Mom, if we don’t think about it, we certainly can’t change anything.”
No wonder my first reaction is to numb out with chocolate. 
 
A landslide of Biden votes was supposed to scream to Trump that famous question from the McCarthy debacle, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” 
Instead, half our country endorses this narcissistic bully, this pathological liar, who is anti-environment and anti-education, anti-science and racist – my lament is interrupted by Tyler, who bounds into the room from preschool and hands me a booklet. 
 
It is a collection of pre-printed things to be grateful for: family, friends, pets, food. The last page is blank, where Ty can add what he is personally MOST grateful for.  He has carefully written: “Monsters”. 
 
My first reaction is: “ummmm. Wow.  Not snow, or candy, or, you know, Mom?” Nope. Monsters. Grateful for monsters.   
 
Now Ty Ty is four, but he often comes out with very profound thoughts.
 
 I mean, in the classroom of happiness, we all know gratitude is the front row. It’s easy to be grateful for the good stuff, but after that….
 
Or maybe not. Life coach Jill Hope recently challenged a group of us to look at our relationship with money by considering whether we feel fear or inspiration when we spend.  I responded that quite honestly, I feel neither inspired nor fearful on most purchases, like groceries, gas, or my cell phone bill. I feel nothing. Jill challenged me to imagine I couldn’t afford to fill my tank or buy groceries or to keep my cell phone on.  Suddenly, going to Trader Joe’s for whatever I want, filling up my tank to go wherever I choose, and using my cell phone for as long as I want sounds quite inspired.  I’ve been on autopilot without knowing it.
 
Maybe gratitude does not come so easy after all. 
It’s that muscle I need to continually exercise (much like my abdomen after all this chocolate).
 
I think of gratitude, and my book groups come to mind. Yesterday, we discussed Say Nothing, a brilliant nonfiction account of the Troubles in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. Its title is from a poem by Northern Irishman Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel prize (or as he called it “the N thing”) in 1996.  There is nothing happy about the book: “Whatever you say, you say nothing” is Heaney’s warning, and the tragic price of speaking up reverberates throughout the book.  (Instead of Halloween candy, residents there douse stress with alcohol).
 
Yet Heaney, coming from this land of Trauma, was declared “a poet of happiness” by the New Yorker last year. His Optimism even decorates his gravestone: "Walk on air against your better judgment". It’s a phrase from his poem, "The Gravel Walks”.  I sit with that: Walk on air against your better judgment. 
 
I read that minutes before he died, he texted his wife Marie this message: “Noli timere” (Latin: do not be afraid). And it’s again that choice: fear or inspiration.
 
More of Heaney’s inspiration:
 
“History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.”
 
It turns out Joe Biden quoted this at his acceptance speech at the DNC convention this summer. 
 
Time to put away the Halloween chocolate. 
 
Inspiration. Hope.  Gratitude….even for the monsters.  They challenge us to walk on air against our better judgment, after all.