27 | April | 2012 | A Thousand Shades of Gray

This post is a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

1. Tulips from a dear friend. This one is my favorite color.

2. A/C in the Eddy Building. They finally turned it on! My office is on the third floor of an old cinderblock building with huge windows that reach wall to wall and from the ceiling to the height of my desk, so it gets HOT in here. My plants love it, but my brain and the chocolate have been reaching melting point with the 80+ degree temperatures we’ve had this week, so I’m grateful for freon.

3. Dance Walking. Eric and I were watching “Glee” the other night (or rather, as I have explained before, I was watching and he just happened to be in the room) and during a musical number, he said “I would hate living in a world where people just broke into big dance, musical numbers or had to sing everything. It’s like my worst nightmare.” I just smiled and stayed quiet. He looked at me and said, “You’d love it wouldn’t you?” Yes, yes I would…

I have always loved musicals (The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, Funny Girl, Lady Sings the Blues, Fame, Flashdance, Grease, Oliver, etc., and the TV show Glee). I was in theater and choir in high school. I long to be in a flash mob. I have been known to break into spontaneous dance parties of one. And this video makes me so happy.

4. Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend?

5. Susan Piver. I am still basking in the glow of the Fearless Creativity retreat I did with her and ten other lovely people two weeks ago, and for the Open Heart Project this week, she made a video about my favorite topic, basic goodness. I adore her.

6. I realized this week that in only two more weeks, I will be on summer vacation, my first one in about ten years.

Bonus joy, bliss, and gratitude: I had moments this week (you read that right, more than one) in which I felt like I was enough and that I had enough, and maybe more importantly, telling you this so publicly doesn’t even make me feel afraid that by mentioning it, I’ll somehow jinx it. I am cultivating confidence in enough.

The last three “Blogging from A to Z in April” posts will be the hardest. There just aren’t that many words that start with x, y, and z. It’s like they put them at the end of the alphabet on purpose, or because they were at the end, by the time they got to them, there were no words left.

As for “x,” there’s only a single page, half the front and half the back of a single page in my dictionary, and most of the words listed are ones I don’t recognize, don’t understand, and certainly don’t ever use.

image by arztsamui / freedigitalphotos.net

X-ray has a technical definition (boring, or rather “I don’t really understand how it works or what it is, so I’m bored by it”). What’s more interesting about the concept is that there is such a technology, one that can see inside our bodies, under the skin, revealing the mystery of a broken bone, the surprise of a cavity, the shock of a tumor–the profound, precious, hidden mess and magic of the body.

As a kid, I totally believed in the possibility, eventual reality, of x-ray glasses. Although, at that time, the only use I could imagine for it was spying on people in the next room or seeing someone in their underwear.

image by chris willis

If someone looked inside of me, took an x-ray, they’d see a malformed and damaged right hip, leg bones that aren’t the same length, an old break in the right pinky finger, lungs that are clear, weakness in the right shoulder, a mind that might be smaller than normal but is healthy, a spine that is slightly bent and sometimes weak but mostly strong, and a heart that’s simultaneously whole and broken.