Gonk with Gratitude

One of my friends Suzie who writes the wonderful Munch + Nibble blog http://munchandnibble.blogspot.com commented upon an American invention, the “Gratitude Diary” where you record every night five things to be grateful for during the day. Whilst initially dismissing this as a feel good sop to the soul, I have now revisited this cynical side of me and decided it does have a certain merit as having read Suzie’s post, I have found myself thinking at odd times of the day what 5 things I would list. The idea is you have to list five different things every night and as a result you will start looking for things to be grateful for and anticipating them and slowly your life will veer to the positive – you get the gist. Bit like standing naked in front of the mirror and naming out loud the bits of your body you like – I discovered I’m quite fond of my hair and toes – hard to think how I am going to dress to accentuate those two features – and the fateful image of the gonk plastic creatures with pink hair that I used to crave as a child, is now fixed in my head.

Among the things I would list today would include, richness of Australian language. Our next door neighbours have three late teen/early 20’s children living at home – like the Italians and their “bamboccioni”, it is the norm for university students in Sydney to live with their parents, note this will not be a trend that the Drama Queens will be partaking in. Once school is over they will be heavily encouraged to discover the liberating experience of living away from home. The father of the household next door returned home yesterday to find the back garden had been turned into a mini rave and could be heard shouting in fury over the din, “Turn the ****** music down, my beer’s vibrating.” which appealed to me as an image.

This morning I met an acquaintance on the walk back from school drop off, who announced with pride that she was a new person following a month in rehab. I was immediately consumed by my nasty curious streak as to what particular type of rehab was necessary and then by a vague sense of envy as she described it as being akin to a month’s retreat. However envy of retreat like zen month apart I should list on my gratitude list that despite drama of daily life rehab has not yet been necessary.

I think I had better stop on the gratitude theme before I burst spontaneously into a chorus of "My Favorite Things" a la Julie Andrews, but if you spot a small figure, complete with great hair and toes, skipping round Sydney in a grateful optimistic frenzy, you can feel fairly confident it's me!