How I'll never have a gratitude journal...
...but I owe someone a big thank you.
This issue marks ONE MONTH(!) of this newsletter. I’m 3 people short of my subscriber goal for the first month and I’d love your help to reach that goal. If you like what you read, the greatest compliment you can give me is to share with your friends and family. You can do so by hitting the button below. Now let’s get into this week’s I was just thinking about…..
Some of the best people I know have gratitude journals. I know they do because they post about it often on social. I also know that I will absolutely never ever have one. I’m not sure if you frequent TikTok but #deinfluencing is trending big time on that platform. It entails a creator filming a video telling you that you actually don't need that e.l.f. lip oil or that $165 shower head that apparently removes all the nasty stuff from your water leaving you with the best hair of your life. Deinfluencing is a knee-jerk reaction to all the actual influencing (read consumerism) that floats around social media and I’m kind of into it. I have effectively deinfluenced myself right out of gratitude journaling.
It sounds nice! Wake up, write what you’re grateful for, close journal, go about your day with a sunny outlook. But when I try to envision myself doing it, I know it would go something like…
Day 1: Write five things I am grateful for, feel pretty great!
Day 2: Write three things I’m grateful for, one of which is vaguely the same as something I wrote yesterday
Day 3: Write “see above”
Day 4: Forget to write (and so on to infinity)
The thing is, I’m sure this mode of expression works really well for some people. But, to me it feels like just another “thing” to do and that probably defeats the purpose. All this is not to say I don’t feel grateful. In fact, what sparked the idea for this week’s newsletter was thinking about one of my all-time favorite quotes. It was said by Italian actor Roberto Remigio Benigni; you might have seen him in a gorgeous movie from 1997 called “It’s a Beautiful Life.” I have not one single clue how I came across this quote but it has stuck with me for years. It says:
“It is a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.”
Mmm, I love that. When you are you deeply grateful to someone, how you show it matters. To do so with zero gusto or grand gesture indicates that you’re common, middling, just passable! What a sentiment. I think of it every time I feel immense gratitude. It brings me into the present moment and helps me imagine how I might say thank you in a bigger way than I might instinctively imagine at first. Seeing as how we’re in the perfect month for gratitude and thanks, I thought I’d tell a little story about a couple quiet heroes who inspired me to put this quote into practice.
In September of 2021 my husband, daughter, and I moved out of New York City. My husband and I had lived there for 13 years and my daughter had spend her entire three years of life as a city kid. It was a painful move in a lot of ways though we knew it had to be done. In our new small town, not too far from the city we love, I felt an aloneness I hadn’t experienced ever before. I gave birth to our second daughter in December. My husband went back to work in late January and after a few lovely, long stays by family to help with the baby, I found myself utterly alone.
Moving is rough for anyone, particularly when the place you move it is wholly new and devoid of all the people you depended on for closeness. Though I was blissfully in love with my new baby, I was lonely. Deeply lonely. I am a social person by any and all accounts. I am energized by people and a new house, in a new town, with new neighbors, meant I was untethered. By the time my girl was 8 weeks old I was going stir crazy. I missed the city streets where you could never be actually alone. Even a false sense of camaraderie was preferable to an empty house and no one to call over for coffee.
And so, one day, in the freezing cold I bundled up the baby and drove into the center of our small town. There is one single coffee shop and I’d never been inside. I was in search of tasty coffee yes, but if I’m honest, I wanted to see another grown up human and maybe even exchange a few words. When I went inside a man was making espresso behind the counter while a woman took orders and rang people up. There was an easy energy in the place. People were happy to be there and the couple chatted up each and every person placing an order. When my turn came the woman, whose name is Elizabeth, ooo’ed and awww’ed over the baby as I relayed a little of our story—just moved here, brand new baby, former city folks, and all that. Elizabeth was attentive, kind, and smiled warmly every other word. And just like that my empty cup was fuller.
I started stopping in every other day. Slowly but surely Elizabeth and her husband Genarro (the man making espresso that first day) asked me more about myself. And I told them all they wanted to know. Their warmth and generosity was a balm to my loneliness. I eventually started showing up on weekends, I brought my husband and first daughter in, I showed them pictures of my dog, Liz and I bonded over being singers, and Gennaro and my husband clicked instantly. Eventually, the baby smiled at them every time we walked in and they asked if I’d like my “usual” (a lifelong goal of being a “regular” with a “usual” at a coffee shop achieved!).
When Christmas 2022 rolled around and I’d officially been going to their shop for a year I decided to write them a letter. With my favorite quote in mind I let my feelings pour out all over the page. I told them what it meant to me to have the warmth of conversation to get me through the often long, cold days of postpartum recovery. I told them that their kindness is the sort that can change people and I hope they never stop making people feel welcome and valued. I tucked the card into a plate piled with cookies and dropped it off. Later Liz would tell me Gennaro was so proud he read it aloud at their family Christmas gathering.
This time of year, gratitude can begin to feel secondary to the crush of activities that the holidays bring. But whether you do, in fact, love gratitude journaling or you feel stirred by Benigni’s quote the way I do, I hope you’ll take the time to demonstrate your gratitude to someone in a grand way that is anything but moderate. Because I’ve just been thinking about how incredible it feels to give and receive gratitude in excess.
p.s. For those who remember Rae from my first issue, she told me today as I tackled a particularly difficult piece of music (visibly terrified), “You are good, you know you are, you need to believe it….I am not disappointed in you, you’re right where I expect you to be.” And tears came to my eyes. She’s next on my big gratitude list.
Still thinking about…
(a few things haunting me on the Internet)
Read this book in the span of two 2-hour flights and (spoiler alert to my book club) I LOVED it. So odd. So original.
Getting cozy in this sweater made of 100% cotton for those of us whose skin gets itchy at the mere sight of wool
Considering making this stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving but feeling iffy on all the heavy cream. I’m taking recipe ideas if you have ‘em!
Absolutely devouring every damn issue of Emilia Petrarca’s funny, insightful Shop Rat newsletter. If you love fashion it’s a must subscribe.
Putting these chic pajamas on my Black Friday shopping list