Summit Wellness: Gratitude - "Microscopic Moments of Mirth"
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Wellness can be achieved by virtue of completing a journey and maintain a lifestyle. But it can also be magnified by our ability to appreciate and be thankful for the things that we already have! Summit Wellness continues to hum the melody of connection between feeling good and feeling grateful!
Gratitude is a monthly feature contributed by Matt Anthony, Digital Media Producer and on-air host for the Summit FM. Matt reflects on instances where we might uncover more ways to appreciate what’s in front of us, and how those instances might contribute to our overall health and well-being.
"Microscopic Moments of Mirth"
By Matt Anthony - Summit FM Contributor
At the 2:34 mark of The Rolling Stones’ version of “Just My Imagination’” from the iconic Some Girls album, there’s a seemingly unnoticeable 3-chord slide-riff that jumps out of the mix. I’m not sure whether it’s Keef or Woody who is responsible for it. But I remember hearing it for the first time, when it gently massaged the Jensen Coaxial speakers of my ’71 Old Cutlass. I was blown away.
In the over 40 years since then, whenever I listened to their version of The Temptations classic, I would ready myself, as if I had a Fender Telecaster in my hands, and playfully mimic that quick, soulful, staccato burst of gooey joy that, for whatever reason, took hold of me on that day in 1978.
Why did it do that?
As I advance along the AARP-timeline, I’ve come to realize that ‘gratitude’ can come in very small, bite-size chunks. And our appreciation of these tiny events may not be immediately apparent, as it was when first hearing Side 1/Song 3 of Some Girls. Social media has instructed us that the big achievements in our lives get top billing. For instance, moments ago, while scrolling through my Facebook page, a friend announced a major, life-changing job promotion. A family-member shared photos of a gender-reveal party. And over on Instagram, two of my nephews boasted loudly of the seats they procured for a huge EDM show.
I've had a hard time leaving this town
I've been losing everything that I've found
Within the last year, I’ve introduced a couple of good friends to the music of The Clarks. My friend, Gary, likes to read the lyrics when he encounters a new song. As a history and theology buff, his eyes were instantly widened from the instant “Born Too Late’ invaded the Bluetooth speaker that sat on their front porch. He was in love with them.
Now, I’m not a musician by any stretch of the imagination, primarily just tinkering from time to time on an old Sigma acoustic. But that G-to-Am-to-D transition at the :42 mark is the goosebump-moment. Why is that? How do we explain it? I mean, it’s a chord-progression that takes less than three seconds?
These small moments of gratitude can be largely complex. And the appreciation of them can go amazingly unnoticed. This life-lesson has become much more magnified after January of 2019 when I was entrusted with being a caregiver. What has become much more pronounced for me as we make our way through the 4th year of this disease is that tiny instances of joy can often be shrouded by the big picture. And that means that we sometimes have to take more time to find them.
So, I try to keep this mantra alive every day: uncover something blissful and magnify it. But it’s tough.
‘Music’ seems to be a worthy barometer. When I come home in the middle of the day to check on my bride to make sure that she’s safe and to find out she’s spending her day, I can usually count on help from Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. The house is normally full of music. Generally, it’s (coincidentally) the Grateful Dead. Donna and her son have been long-time fans, so Terrapin Station or American Beauty provides lunch-time entertainment. Snagging a few bites of quinoa while watching her joyfully mouthing the words is pretty simple but pretty remarkable.
Fire wheel burning in the air
You will follow me and we will ride to glory
Way up, the middle of the air
The smiley-face that a server at a restaurant places next to her name on the check when she thanks you for visiting. That refreshing, clean, swept-away smell that emerges after a storm has blown through and the humidity has lowered. Or, as experienced this past week, that comforting mellowness of being able to put your stuff back in its place after a weekend full of painting the interior of your home.
No, they don’t compare, necessarily, to graduation ceremonies, trips to Hawaii, or the birth of a daughter. But while life is punctuated with major milestones, its DNA is comprised of smaller, somewhat mundane, ebb-and-flow events that, on the surface, seem incongruous with the ‘big stuff’.
But these are the things that matter. These are the things that get us through. They mirror the historic double-tap ending of “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. That delicious pause before Michael Hutchence mumbles the line, “You’re one of my kind”. That silky, sexy trumpet-punch when Miles announces his entrance at 1:32 of “So What” inside Kind Of Blue.
These are the moments that can inspire true gratitude.