Summit Wellness: Gratitude - "Microscopic Miracles"

By Matt Anthony - Summit FM Digital Media Specialist

All the small things
True care, truth brings.

• “All The Small Things” – blink-182

What do you do once the big event is over? Your daughter is finally married. You eventually received the promotion that you deserve. (‘overdue’, as it is!) You’re back from that amazing 10-day vacation. The Black Keys show is over and you’re driving home. Or…that offer you put in on eBay actually did make you the highest bidder!

Now what?

If Facebook has taught us anything, it’s that we have full, unadulterated license to share THE most captivating, joyous events that our lives can muster. In fact, there is tacit approval from the online community to boast until our heart’s content. To spend any time scrolling through your feed is to flex the tendons in your mouse-hand as you click ‘like’ and heart emojis until fatigue makes you shut the screen on your laptop.

But what happens next?

Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?

Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.

Master Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?

Young Caine: No.

Master Po: Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?

Young Caine [looking down and seeing the insect] Old man, how is it that you hear these things?

Master Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?

• Kung Fu (TV series)/“The Way of the Tiger, The Sign of the Dragon” - 1972

Donna and I were walking on the Freedom Trail last week in Tallmadge. It was a beautiful day, and it was a busy day. The trail was packed with runners, walkers, recumbent bicyclists, skateboarders, and lots of dogs. Somehow, though, amongst the cacophony, a gentle breeze accelerated briefly and rattled the tops of the trees. They nudged up against each other like wind-chimes, a chorused brushing-together of swishes and swooshes. I stopped and closed my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Donna asked.

I could feel myself smiling. “Nothing at all,” I replied.

It was the antidote to the tumult of the daily grind. A miniscule, miracle. Like hearing a train whistle as you are about to fall asleep. Like gawking at the way the sunset sneaks through a bedroom window at the Golden Hour, and you fumble with your camera trying to capture it. Or, for me, walking up the steps from the garage after a long day of work and smelling those simple peanut-butter cookies that Donna still makes for me.

On the gratitude-spectrum, these microscopic events flutter in, do their mystical work, and evaporate. And these are only the ones that we notice! While it’s very challenging, I’m doing my level-best to be open to the presence of the ones that, sadly, I miss.