I am a rock and, at this moment in my very long history, I live in Natick Massachusetts. Previously, for the past many million years, I lived at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Or not. I may have arrived on a glacier from up North as recently as 20,000 years ago, dropped off Fortune Rocks Beach on the coast of what is now called Maine. As the Mainer’s say “Hahd tellin, not knowin.”
But several
years ago, I washed up on the beach. I
enjoyed beach life; seagulls squawking, surf pounding, wide open skies. The
sand and tides polished my rough edges. I was content. And then this older, gray-haired
guy picked me up and took me home.
He keeps me
on the windowsill next to his reading chair among pictures of family and
departed loved ones. He likes the weight of me, the smoothness shaped by time,
the striations that mark my long journey. Every morning he picks me up from my
place, positions me just so in his palm and sits quietly for a time looking at
the photos and the dawning of a new day. He calls me his “Gratitude Rock”.
The rock
identification app on his iPhone says I am Green Jasper formed between 3.5
billion and 35 million years ago.. But, as they say, age is just a number. In
my case, a really big number.
Simon and
Garfunkel once sang, “I am a rock…and a rock feels no pain.” True enough, but
like the old dude, I feel grateful—for the warmth of my sunny windowsill. I
feel the gentle pressure of a human hand that lifts me with intention. I feel
the quiet appreciation of being chosen, noticed, held.
Gratitude,
it turns out, is not limited to beings with beating hearts.
And so, as
he sits each morning reflecting on what has been and what may come, I sit with
him—steady, ancient, and grateful.
That makes two of us.
