November has been mild and sunny where we live, the perfect temperature for my favorite clothing ensemble – shorts and a sweatshirt. Toast, the wonder dog, and I have been taking multiple laps around our walking route, savoring the warm rays, maximizing the shrinking daylight.

The end of our trek takes us east along Beaufort’s waterfront where we greet neighbors and friends, beholding the pageantry of boats and yachts that take respite at the docks during winter migration. Vessel crew and owners intermingle with locals, imbibing at bars, dining at restaurants, engaging in conversation. I love this part of living in a coastal town, enriched by the texture and diversity that those who travel by boat bring into the mix.

“I like your sweatshirt,” he called out. He was medium build, white curls pooling at the side of a sun hat, a Zen kind of fit-looking Paw-Paw. Like a vegetarian grandaddy that does yoga and reads Tarot cards. I look down to remember what I’m wearing. My sweatshirt is old and faded. It reads, “Grateful University.”

“Thanks,” I respond, restraining Toast, who interprets the interaction as a personal invitation to extend greeting in the form of scaling Zen Paw-Paw’s body and hugging his head like a doggy turban. “It’s part of her love language,” I explain, pulling her back.

He laughs. “I like dogs.” He strokes her face where the cowl lick rises between her eyes and she relaxes, leaning into the rub. “My boat is Sentirsi Grato. I named it that to remember to slow down and notice.” He lets the word notice sit at the end of the sentence, both complete and incomplete. He doesn’t say what caused him to want to slow down or why his dial is set to (n) for notice. I follow Zen Paw Paw’s lead and let the sentence sit too, refraining from comment or question.

Toast has had enough of this philosophical sentence sitting, signaling me to hurry up by executing her favorite move of aggressive leash squirrel tracking. I glance back to wave good-bye, but Zen Paw Paw doesn’t see me. His face is raised toward the sun in sentirisi grato, which the Google machine translates as “feel grateful.”

I’m reluctant to write about gratitude during November when people are posting daily affirmations of thanksgiving while tattooing lucky, grateful, blessed child of Jesus the Savior on their buttocks. All that “Today is Tuesday and I’m grateful for Cottonelle Extra-Soft-Six-Ply” feels plastic and icky and makes me want to smart off. Something akin to that Cottonelle is going to come in handy when you need to wipe all this bull honkey from your soul. (This snark from someone who wears a Grateful University sweatshirt.)

I start most days humming “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive,” and I think abundance and gratitude provide the best possible path toward establishing and sustaining happiness. Then, why, oh why, does the gratitude crusade of November grind my turkey gizzard?

Isn’t a month of being grateful progress toward a habit of gratitude or a lifetime of living with an appreciative heart? Aren’t steps forward considered to be good steps? Yes, and yes. But I’m suspect that November gratitude might just be for optics. And I’m over optics. If I’m just acting grateful for an admission ticket onto the lucky, grateful, blessed bus, why bother? Gratitude is a black lace slip under a white tulle dress. In the light, intentions make themselves as known as a stomach virus.

 

When Ryann was seven, she smiled for photos like she was positioning her mouth for dental x-rays. It was as if the hygienist had inserted bite wings, ducked behind the metal panel of radiological protection, and told Ryann to jut her chin up and out, clench her teeth, and yell, CHEEEEEESE.

This. Made. Me. Crazy.

“Just smile natural, baby.”

“Stop clenching your teeth.”

“Ryann – stop smiling like that.”

“Smile normal.”

“For the love of all things holy, smile like you’ve got good sense.”

“Smile, dammit.”

“Stop crying and smile.”

When I look at pictures from the clenching era, I can spot what was going on in these scenes in Ryann’s blue eyes. It’s forced agony in glossy finish. I sent those smile-against-will picture files off to VistaPrint for Christmas cards with the headline of lucky, grateful, blessed. I hope no one was fooled, because looking back, I regret trying to fake something Ryann wasn’t “feeling” in the name of familial holiday optics. I wish I would have just said, smile, and made the headline, lucky, grateful, clenching.

Dissecting all this circles back to my reoccurring lesson in attempting to release control. It feels like that old 7-Up slogan, “Never had it; never will.”

In honor of Zen Paw-Paw, I’m renaming this month, NoZENber, with the intention of not just talking about appreciation and gratitude, but feeling it, without attachment or optics, with my face raised toward the rays, slowing down and noticing, with Zen Paw-Paw and his boat, Sentirsi Grato, in my mind’s eye horizon. 

I pledge not to sit in judgment of how others show gratitude. I hope it’s not just for optics, but that’s not on me. Do whatever feels right and true to you. If you need a jumpstart external message to broadcast, I have a sweatshirt you can borrow.

***

Thanksgiving was Mom’s favorite holiday. She scoured grocery store sales flyers, scoring the biggest and cheapest turkey she could find. “Nineteen cents a pound at Food Lion, plus a coupon,” she would brag. “Making the twenty-eight-pound turkey around five dollars.” She needed that large bird for her family’s table, center pieced with fat blooming Thanksgiving cactus. In her utility room windowsill, African violets strutted late fall swagger. Dang, I miss her overcooked turkey and perfect cornbread and biscuit dressing. There isn’t any way to replicate her feast but I’m working hard on her botany.

In the past, with lots of failed attempts, I haven’t had much luck with violets or cacti. Our Beaufort house with its wise, elderly doors and filtered windowpanes have changed that. Slowly and suddenly, I’m a cactus, violet growing Sensi, taking notice that placement and light can change reality, for which I feel so happy and grateful.