I appreciate it

It was one of those great Sonoma County spring mornings. Sun shining, wind blowing. Pollen – and hope – in the air. I walked out on my veranda overlooking the nine-hole golf course I recently completed. I relaxed, with mimosa in hand, while watching the kids frolic on the water slide they crafted for a science fair project at school (using only recycled water from our indoor waterfall) and smiled knowing that my family is set financially for the rest of our lives, and my children will be attending the finest colleges in the land with perhaps some overseas study to broaden their understanding and appreciation of different cultures.
Then I woke up.
While I appreciated the fantasy, it occurred to me in the grogginess of the morning light, my real life contains a great deal for which I am thankful. But do I honor that gratitude? After all, appreciation comes in all shapes and sizes. For example, I now appreciate more fully my late parents, my siblings and my friends who can (and did) make discussing their respective health issues an art form. That includes me. All I need to do is throw in the phrase ‘must be my sacroiliac’ and I’m my grandfather. Truett was his name and he was the sort of grandfather you’d cast if you were doing a movie that featured a kindly, funny, sly, warm and wise grandpa.
He taught me how to fish. A skill I did absolutely nothing with as it didn’t (and still doesn’t) interest me in the least. Although I thought “A River Runs Through It” (the book and the movie) is a beautifully crafted masterpiece … masterpieces… whatever. Yet, I know that if I even attempted fly-fishing I would be as likely to catch an innocent hat as a fish.
But I digress.
Appreciation is on short supply these days. Is it the pace of life? The multi-tasking, the over-scheduling that hampers our abilities and desires to stop for a few seconds and say thanks or let someone know how much his or her advice/support/insights/jokes mean to us?
Recently the Healdsburg Little League honored longtime volunteer Dave Miller for his 10 years of service to the group. That includes serving on the board, umpiring, leading the efforts to get the fields renovated and updated, fundraising, supervising coaches and umpires and more. This season Dave is slacking off a bit by merely leading the umpire crew and co-coaching three teams. It was made clear that this was a day of appreciation not because Dave was going anywhere but because it was felt he deserved recognition in the midst of his contributions.
I thought, hey, maybe that’s the root of our struggles with simple appreciative gestures — the feeling that I need to wait until an end — an end of a project, a job, a life — to honor someone’s efforts, large, small and in between.
The perfect example of this sort of thinking is posthumous honors. Why wait until someone is dead to acknowledge his or her impact on our lives?
George Harrison was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2002. His friend Eric Idle said: “I bet he won’t show up. I can hear his voice saying, ‘Oh very nice, very useful, a posthumous award. Where am I supposed to put it?’”
Yeah. I get that. No one’s going to treat you to drinks to celebrate an award after you’re dead. I’m pretty sure. And, as nice as it would be to be featured on a stamp (Remember them? Things you lick before sticking on an envelope? Remember envelopes?) I believe it’s much more honoring-able to show one’s gratitude so the recipients can enjoy and experience the love, the thanks, the appreciation.
So what do we do with all that? For me, it’s a vow (made silently, not publicly so no one will know when I break it) that I will express appreciation on a daily basis, whether it be the stranger who hands me the dollar bill I just dropped, the doctor who takes time to not only ask how I’m doing, but actually listen to the answer, to the woman who leaves me a pre-toothpasted toothbrush nightly before bedtime or to the son who makes his bed daily with no reminders. Won’t have to deal with that last one for a while, of course.
And to people who, for some inexplicable reason, peruse these bi-weekly musings on a semi-regular basis.
I appreciate it.
Almost as much as I appreciate squirrels. Don’t ask.
Steven David Martin is a columnist in the Windsor Times, the sister publication of the Healdsburg Tribune.