To introduce the theme of celebrating gratitude to our online class for caregivers this past Tuesday, my co-author and I Christine Gautreaux decided to read the two acknowledgement pages that the book we use as our syllabus contains. There are two because we kept the original page from the first edition, Stillpoint: The Dance of Selfcaring, Self-Healing which I authored by myself, except for the 22 people I thanked for their help with that version, and the stillborn version that came before it.
Christine read the second acknowledgement page for Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, Time to Breathe and Reclaim Joy, the revised edition that she coauthored with me. We gave thanks to one another and to the dozen or more people who assisted us with all it takes to produce and publish a book. Remembering and recounting these people and those experiences was joy-filled and enlightening, as being in a state of gratitude usually is. This was especially true for me as I’m preparing my next manuscript to become a book and be released out into the world. So, this morning I began thinking about who would be on this new book’s acknowledgement page, as contributing to what will soon be The Art of Grieving: How Art and Artmaking Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives.
An Interplay friend and colleague Rebecca, who lives in MN came to mind. We hadn’t spoken in a while, so I reached out for us to get online this morning to catch up. Rebecca had had some icky technology issues recently and was unable to receive any of the three emails I tried to send to her with the zoom link in them. The workaround was that she found an old email with the link and clicking on that she connected. We spoke of many unpleasant things having to do with technology, the difference between a hack and a scam, and can you have both at the same time? How can you tell if malware has gotten on your computer and taken control of what happens when you touch the keys? There can be viruses and identity thieves and at some point, the notion that life is just not worth living sometimes came out. This prompted me to select a small section of the manuscript I had just completed to physically demonstrate it to Rebecca. She enjoyed my demonstration of my favorite Jules Feiffer carton, which plays with the question, “Is life worth living?” She asked me to do it again so she could perform with me. We were in the middle of moving together onscreen when my apple watch posted a warning, “It looks like you have fallen.”
This “big brother is watching out for me” technology had sent me warnings before, so I knew to click on the item that says, “I didn’t fall.” I did this, and went on with our movements, but somewhere in the process, I must not have click on the right thing and a sound went off. A message came asking if I needed assistance. I tried to answer no and click it off several times but shortly I saw that the county’s 9.11 office was telephoning me. As I answered the call, in laughter and deep gratitude, I told them. “I didn’t fall. I’m dancing! I didn’t elaborate but I could have added, “and I’m most grateful that I still can.”
Wishing you whatever you and yours need to be in gratitude this Thanksgiving Season.
