By Janice Lindsay
Contributing Writer
Sometimes the problems of this dear old suffering world seem too huge for me to comprehend, try as I might to understand them or to consider what I, one insignificant aging lady, can do about them.
So my brain takes a time out.
I suppose I’m following the advice in that old song, made famous by Bing Crosby: “When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep…”
I never had much success counting sheep – and why sheep? – but I’ve found that I didn’t realize I had so many blessings, or hadn’t thought of some things as blessings, until I started counting them.
Some blessings are obvious, like my family, most of whom live far from me, but distance doesn’t fray the ties among us. Photos of my two granddaughters adorn my refrigerator door. They live on the opposite coast from me, so I don’t see them often enough. But I get photos.
And there are those women with whom I share a warm friendship, some near and some far, some that are recent and some that go back decades, some I see often, some occasionally.
And the blessing of being in fairly good health, living in a safe place, having clothes to wear and food to eat – not blessings enjoyed by everybody, sad to say.
We all have the blessing of the sky, fascinating, ever-changing, the messenger of pending storms or lovely weather.
We all have the blessings of nature’s birds and wildflowers. This month, here in New England we enjoy the return of hummingbirds, those tiny miraculous bundles of energy. There’s the sweet, promising smell of earth after a spring rain.
And we all have public libraries, one of democracy’s greatest inventions, fulfilling the belief that all knowledge and all literature should be available to all people.
And elected government, embodying the idea that citizens should have a say in writing the laws they’ll be expected to follow.
And the blessings of music. In my case, it’s a ukulele and friends to join me in strumming and singing.
Each of us has our own little bright spots that bring bits of joy and peace to our troubled minds.
One of my bright spots is elephants. When I was in high school, I read a novel that takes place in Africa and features elephants. I’ve been fascinated ever since. I’ve had only one close-up view of a live elephant, at a sanctuary, but my house is full of elephants.
A few years ago, a friend discovered my love of elephants and gave me a toy elephant. Other friends and family members noticed. I now have a collection of elephant greeting cards. I have elephant coffee mugs and tote bags and figurines and other toy elephants and jewelry and an elephant candle holder and a mobile of elephants and key chains and Christmas tree ornaments and stationery and a pouch to hold my ukulele tuner and books about elephants and an elephant bedspread and a planter – most of which I did not buy. Every one of them brings me a little bit of joy.
In my opinion, we all have a responsibility, as participants in a democracy, to try to make the world a better place for our fellow travelers. It’s not easy. None of us can do it all or do it alone. But we can each pick something where we can make a positive difference. And when it all feels overwhelming and undoable, our brains can take a time-out and find restful joy in some little blessing, even if it’s only an elephant design on a pair of socks.
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