Music Without Music

I think we need a secular term for "blessings" sometimes.  Because that word is just a little too saccharine-Christian for my liking.  It's just that I'm becoming more closely acquainted with gratitude these days & I wish I had better catch-all word to call those things I'm grateful for.  In any case, I encountered many things that made my heart effervesce with gushy, gooey love today.


My physical therapist is one of the most positive and enthusiastic people I have ever met, & and middle school/ early high school Tracy would have likely found her overly perky and annoying.  But that poor little 13 to 17 year-old Trace was surrounded by the facade of enthusiasm-- ever-smiling peers involved in numerous sports & activites who were "dating" other extracurricularly over-extended peers, with none of them being terribly kind to the less beautiful, less gifted, & less charismatic classmates.  Thankfully my understandable confusion (which bred cynicism) toward the outgoing go-getters lifted later in life, & I am now able to identify when joy & enthusiasm are genuine.  This is most definitely the case with my therapist.  She is preposterously sweet and kind and generous.  Today, after the patient scheduled for the appointment after mine called to cancel, my therapist offered to work with me for an extra half hour.  I eagerly took her up on that offer & got some divine, knot-busting soft tissue work for my low-back and feet.  Throughout the visit she & I chatted like old friends, & when I told her about the strange gas leak from a mysterious left-on burner the day before & joked that someone might be trying to off me, she said, "Yeah right, like this adorable, friendly, fun girl here has any enemies."  And all of this just broke my heart into a million beautiful twinking shards of awe & gratitude.  That someone could be so very selfless & sweet, & that this extraordinary person could recognize similar qualities in myself.....well it just made me want to laugh and cry and dance & behave in any number of conflicting & lunatic-like ways.  And then, as so often happens with me, the intense gratitude and love I felt toward this person began to ripple outward-- to the family and friends who have seen me through very difficult times, to the menagerie of adorable animals who have graced my life, to complete strangers, to enemy-type people who, at some point, made my life a living hell, but who also made me the person I am today.  To my goddamn savior of a boyfriend who teaches me about patience and generosity and big-heartedness everyday.  Fuck, man.....it was intense. 

And of course every minute of life cannot swell like some orchestral climax.  But when you expereince a moment or a series of moments like this....it can make you tremble like a plucked harp for some time.  It can grant you temporary amnesia & some much needed respite from pain.