Gratitude and dissatisfaction

My hair, with the (neater) hair of dear friends Janet and Zafer

 I love my hair. I think that each time I see it in the mirror, whether it’s behaving as I wish it were or frizzy and annoying. Each moment when the wisp of a complaint wafts by my brain, I catch it with a kind of outrage—is this how you speak of a dear friend who is leaving for such a long trip? Apologise! And all of this happens right at the back of my brain, both the complaint and the backlash against it. It’s as though internal self-critic is being edited by an advocate of appreciative inquiry. I find it amusing to watch my internal voices talk to each other. (You might find it rather more troubling than amusing, but bear with me before calling the authorities to take me away…)

Watching this little interplay between different voices in my head has been illuminating. I think often I would have ignored the fact that so much of the chatter that comes at me from me has a somewhat negative spin. Michael has noted for years the little twitch of displeasure my eyebrows give when I glance at the mirror. My eyes are drawn to this or that imperfection as they scan my face and body. And I think eyes are generally like that, and too often our minds are drawn to those imperfections in our lives as they scan our lives.

This desire we have to notice the negative, to search for imperfections and try to stamp them out—I figure it’s this desire that brought us fire, seedless watermelon, and the internet. It’s been our friend. But now I wonder if there are ways it is more foe than friend, at least for me.

Because while it’s true that the fact that I’ll lose my hair in the next three weeks adds a special poignancy to my relationship with my hair, it hasn’t changed my hair texture in any way. My hair is still just as annoying and beautiful as it was before I was set to lose it. It’s just that now I feel grateful for it because it’s suddenly temporary.

But we are all temporary. Every conversation, every relationship, every day, every lifetime—all just a speck of sand on the massive beach of time. This morning I have gotten up after a good night’s sleep in a lovely hotel in Sydney. I have eaten eggs perfectly scrambled, drunk fresh and vividly orange carrot/ginger/apple/turmeric juice, and answered email from people I adore all over the world. This has been a perfect morning in its own way, and now it’s over, more temporary even than my hair. Next I’ll go and spend time with clients I have come to love, and then that will be over. The sun rises and sets and this day is gone forever.

I know, though, that my eye would want to travel to the things that are absent in this day. Michael and the kids are too far away across the Tasman. Other loved ones scatter across every continent where eyes read these words. There are many more of you absent than present. It is a heartily imperfect day in that way. And, ironically, my hair is particularly frizzy. But there is something in me, some sort of grace, that is spending way more time smiling at the imperfections and letting my eyes and my mind linger on the touches of perfection, the corkscrew curl, the sparkle of laughter, the lingering taste of rose petals in a sweet, the cloud of cinnamon that scents my clothes because I packed my new green tea in my suitcase.

What do your eyes rest on as they travel over your face? What does your mind pick out as it travels through your day? How could we hold the terrible beauty that we are all temporary, that the day passes and you don’t ever get it back? How do we divert our attention from our distresses and losses to those things in our lives that are jewels?  Cancer seems to help with that, but I don’t suggest it as a method to develop your own appreciation. I’d love to hear what you do that helps you live more in gratitude and less in dissatisfaction. You can write to me while I try to defrizz my curls…