They Can’t Take That Away From Me

I had a premonition.

The last time I blogged, I imagined that if Drumpf actually won, I would need to be grateful that I’ve had the life I have had for all these years, without it being torn up side down.

I’m still grateful for that—but I would be lying if I said that was enough.

I find it more difficult than ever to look around and feel gratitude.

I know I’m not alone—and I suppose I’m grateful for that—but I wonder if anyone experiences the rise of the most repugnant person into a position of power in exactly the same way.

So there is no doubt that my sense of gratitude has been more than severely challenged- it’s been almost obliterated.

And yet.

On the next to the last episode of the brilliant series, Rectify, the major character, Daniel Holden, who has s been falsely imprisoned for 19 years, recounts to his therapist, in devastatingly nauseating detail, his gang rape in the prison shower. But just when you think you cannot bear a moment more, he talks about the small drops of water falling from the shower head. The way the light refracted, and how they felt when they fell on the side of his cheek. And the gratitude he felt for those drops and their beauty.

And so I guess if he can find something to give thanks for in the middle of such a debasing, excruciating and violent experience, I can find things to be grateful for as well, as our country stands on the precipice of a moral, economic and spiritual rape.  I have to.  We all have to. Gratitude for the small things.  The things that no one can take away.