Gratitude day 3: The crises that weren't
Just over a week ago, I got an unexpected social gift: a long conversation about writing, six feet apart on my front porch. At one point, I told the man that I had not deserved an earlier turn in my writing career. “All I can do is to be as grateful as I know,” I told him.
Today’s edition of these coronavirus gratitude chronicles feels much like that.
Day 3: Tuesday, March 31
Since I took a blogging break Sunday and Monday, today’s list compiles thanks from three days.
1. The cocoa that didn’t spill (more) - As I try to expel intestinal worms (yes, as fun to host as they sound) and restore my gut from said stowaways, I’ve changed my morning coffee add-ins to coconut oil and cocoa powder, instead of the milk and sugar I once added.
In a pre-caffeine state yesterday, I dropped the tub of cocoa powder, which I might or might not have tried to tip into my coffee mug. (I’ve never seen a food-serving shortcut I didn’t try to take.) Even as visions of a big powdery mess expanded in my mind’s eye, however, I somehow managed to catch the falling tub. To my amazement, very little powder tipped out — most deposited on one pant leg, and seemingly too little to attempt wringing a cup of cocoa from my leg. (I kid. Mostly.)
And, oh, I was grateful. Cleaning may serve as free therapy for some, but I have rarely found it so.
2. The driver who didn’t hit me - Sunday’s mercies averted a far worse predicament: getting hit by an inattentive driver. Until the weekend, we’d had upper-30s weather here in Anchorage, which meant lots of melting snow and ice. Sunday’s temperatures dropped, though, turning large puddles into sheets of ice.
To skirt one en route home from the mail box Sunday, I briefly used the middle of the road. As I progressed, I noticed a small red car approaching a stop sign at the cross street. He didn’t stop. Then he turned toward me, at which point I thought surely he’d see me and slow.
He didn’t.
As the car actually seemed to speed up, I scrambled into a puddle with a shriek, splashing down into the lane he should have used. Only then did the driver stop to check that I was all right. Mercifully, harsher words did not spill from my lips. “Please look before you turn!” I pleaded, then continued my short walk home, quite shaken.
Hopefully, I was not the only one spared. After all, when I hit a patch of ice crossing the Canadian Rockies last fall (on day two of my long drive to Anchorage), God kindly kept me from hitting anything during the bad skid that ensued — not even the guardrail near which I stopped in the lane for oncoming traffic.
In that moment of a scare caused by my own folly, I breathed thanks for mercy from injury and collision. But there’s no telling what greater woe that scare spared me from in the coming days, as I inched across hundreds of miles of roads slicked with ice and slush. May that young man prove as mercifully sobered as I was several months past.
3. Medicine for a stiff neck - Whether due to poor sleep or delayed stiffness from said Sunday puddle jumping, I awoke with a stiff neck yesterday. I’d made sure to buy fresh Tiger Balm before leaving Singapore last March, but sadly the jar vanished inside the Rio airport (along with a precious old suitcase), or somewhere inside the room in Sao Paulo where I spent so many weeks during my difficult Brazil stay.
But I have never seen a medicine too old or a tube too squished and fading for me to eek just a little more from it. Nor for nothing do I hold a reputation for zealous use of spatulas. Thus we come to the ancient (or at least aged-looking) tube of some muscle rub I’d packed into my storage unit, and thought to extract either pre-drive or during a brief January visit south.
My not-quite-Tiger Balm, age unknown. Note the careful preservation of its antique patina.
It wasn’t the mythic lost Tiger Balm, alas, but when I’d uncapped it and rubbed on a squirt, I felt … something. For a brief time. And whether placebo or true pain-improver, I felt grateful to my stingy past self and the God who didn’t shave all my strange quirks away on the road.
4. Watching Colbert try to change a bike tire - If this post seems to be drifting toward the flowery, blame it on taking too many cues from how Stephen Colbert averts dead air in his quarantine videos. He’s released only a handful so far, but even a recent short, in which he tried to remember how one changes a bicycle tire, prompted me to laugh. And who’s not grateful for every extra reminder that we can both still breath — hurrah! — and let off tension without getting into a conflict with someone?
Colbert being Colbert, he even worked in a slightly deeper reflection: “What did you learn when you were 13 that you need to know (or was it use) today?” Timelier words than ever.
Want more laughs? Catch up on all Colbert’s quarantine videos.
5. Unexpected social contact - Over the past few days, God’s provided some in-person conversation partners. Though we may not have always adhered to social distancing, I’m so grateful for these gifts of human contact. After all, as I read recently (source forgotten, I regret), human touch imparts some benefits for immunity. While hugs may not ward off the coronavirus, I’m grateful for every one God lets me sneak in during these strange days of mandated isolation.