Gratitude Everlasting – Day 5

If you read my daily gratitude for Day 4, you can probably imagine I went to bed in fleece jammies last night.

Snug under the covers, I reached for the current book on my bedside table The Journal Of Best Practices – A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband

The book resonates with me on so many levels:

• I used to be a special education teacher and worked with many children who had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and/or were on the autistic spectrum;
• I live and work in Silicon Valley where Asperger’s Syndrome is not necessarily a disability but simply an uber prevalent reality;
• I am married with two young children and David Finch’s stories about love, marriage and family are outlandishly humorous and painfully honest.

But it could have been any book. I simply enjoy the written word.

Day 5 – November 5 – I am mindfully grateful for books.

Non-electronic, printed, paper-filled, with or without pictures, BOOKS.

I am not an eBook fan and I’m not a Kindle or Nook user.

I like the weight of a book. I love the smell of a book.

I marvel at the multitude of text fonts, illustrations and photos that can only be captured in a book. I relish reading the front cover for a sneak peak of what lay beyond. I enjoy reading the back cover to get an inside look into the mind(s) behind the words.

As I child, I enjoyed reading scary books and being so afraid, I would only tentatively touch the corners of the pages to turn them, lest something frightening jump off the page at me.

Sad stories (or emotionally happy ones) end up tear-stained and my "most favoritest" books end up with pencil lines and comments in the margins.

There are boxes of books read to me as a child by my parents and there are boxes of books I read to my children when they were younger. The covers are worn but the stories remain intact. And just seeing the book I’ll Love You Forever takes me back in time to two children in diapers, piles of spit-up covered laundry and naptimes!

Beyond the sentimental, books are a gateway to learning and a catalyst for conversation. Pick up the book, digest it and then talk about the content with another.

Books are definitely best when shared.

An accompanying gratitude would obviously be my ability to read these books or the author’s willingness to share, but today I am simply grateful for the bound pages themselves.

NOTE: If you'd like to spend the month in a similar state of gratitude, you can play along with me here in the comments section or check out KindSpring.org to sign up for their 21-day Challenge that begins on November 7^th!