A year ago today I was sitting on the couch watching Despicable Me on DVD with a near four-month-old Alice asleep. It was a fairly typical summer’s day, with lots of sun but a howling wind blowing through our little valley. I looked out the sliding doors in our loungewhen a particularly strong gust of wind brought hundreds of thistle seeds to life. Little white clouds of magic danced in the sunlight and brought an instant grin to my face. The only downer was that I often have moments like this and either 1) I’m on my own and have no one to share my excitement and appreciation with, or 2) I AM with someone and they look at me like I’m a little bit… not all there…
And this is how my 365 days of gratitude started! Thanks to facebook I started to photograph and share the things I am grateful for. On the whole my photos would go unnoticed but it was a way for me to share the little things, like thistle seeds, with people like my sister who has an equally gigantic sense of appreciation for the simplest of miracles.
Little did I realise, but the photos I took during the next three hundred and sixty five days would come to document the highs and lows of parenting, an appreciation of nature, and everything else that life threw my way.
One thing that kept this project going was being able to use it to celebrate special days that come around every year. Birthdays, Father’s day, Christmas and the first day of Spring made an appearance, and I was brimming with gratitude for being involved in a number of weddings throughout the year. I used the sixth day of gratitude to pay homage to Waitangi day, a day to remember the actions of forefathers and to celebrate living in this stunning little country.
There were unexpected events to celebrate, too. Visits from old friends and making new ones, family celebrations and trips to new and exciting destinations. I celebrated my first workout at the gym, a beautiful walk to work, an impromptu dinner date in front of the fire, and the first strawberries of the season. These were some of the events that reminded me about my truly blessed life.
There were days when my gratitude was directed at a beautiful or unusual discovery. This was easier than it sounds; I live in in a place filled with native birds and wild flowers and random farm animals that visit from other properties. I was grateful for discovering mushrooms, frogs, cicadas and hail stones. All of this was possible because my life was forced in to a slower pace and I had time to notice these small but beautiful things. And once I felt I had exhausted the possibilities for discovery within my own fences, I took to photographing the small but miraculous occurrences at parks, lakes, and anywhere else the opportunity arose. This gratitude folder took my appreciation of nature and help me form a personal relationship with it.
And on days when nothing new or spectacular happened, I was able to express gratitude for some of the things I love most. Books, music, cooking and shopping all get more than a few mentions. I was able to document my back to work journey as I endeavoured to find a teaching/parenting balance, and with this came gratitude for the many people who made this possible. Through this project I shared the things that most accurately express who – and what – shapes who I am as a person.
Of course there were days when my gratitude was for things I take for granted every day; my washing machine, a working oven after a power cut, a sunny day to get the wet towels dry. I was grateful for a tax credit, and for a hot water bottle, and for a home-made foot spa. And why wouldn’t I express gratitude for these things? This is what this project is all about; realising that it’s the things like electricity and a road-legal car that make my life run smoothly. They may not make my heart sing like a beautiful sunset, but what would my life honestly be like without them?
I think Paul and our journey comes in to this category, too. He is someone I am undoubtedly grateful for every day, but I sometimes forget to show it. The gratitude project became a record of the work he’s done to finish the house he’s built for his family. I took photos of his ridiculous sense of humour to remember – and maybe use as evidence later on. And it became a celebration of the small but significant gestures of love that remind me just how perfect we are for each other. Gratitude for him will continue long after this project is done.
But I’m not at all saying that I was one hundred per cent committed to this project every single day. Life happens, after all. Often this was because things got busy and I didn’t have my camera on me. But it was something I thought about every day. I’d have a minute or two before bed time when I’d rehash the day’s events and think of things that I was blessed to have. The week after Christmas Alice got sick and it was the first time I didn’t actively think about gratitude every day, but I felt the medicine the doctor gave her was a weeks’ worth of gratitude, anyway. And there were a few days I didn’t express gratitude on purpose. It’s okay to be sad or angry at the situation. And two days later, when I was sitting at a funeral listening to the testimonies of people who were in love with my friend, I was able to express gratitude for having known her at all.
And of all the things I’m grateful for, of all the photos of beautiful things and music and learning and happy experiences, I shared my appreciation for Alice. Of the 320 or so photos I took over the year, 121 of them are of my girl and her journey from baby to toddler. There were many more photos of things that would never have happened if Alice wasn’t around, like impromptu trips to the beach or a freezer full of baby food or the many, many photos of toys and photos and cool kids programmes on television. I was grateful to be there for her first ride on a swing, and her bringing me mother’s group, and her instant love of goats, pigs and ducks. I was grateful for her eyelashes, her toes, and the face she makes when she pretends to blow her nose. There were photos taken to thank people for gifts or toys they’d given to Alice, or for the time they spent with her, and the gratitude project is a record of Alice’s growing relationships with some of the most important people in our lives.
I was talking to a friend who started her gratitude project around the same time as me and we agreed that the collection of photos, regardless of what they are of, hold some of the most profound and vivid memories. She said that this could be because they were taken during a year of such incredible, life changing growth; finding out who we are as people who identify as parents as well as many, many other things. I couldn’t agree more, and now that my project is over I have more than three hundred photos that tell the story of the single most defining year of my life to date.
Mine is a humble story. A story of slow pace and simple words. It speaks of nature and small joys and the seasons. It speaks of people and places and things. Of happiness and finding solace. It speaks of love.
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