2007.....

So, 2007 is slowly coming to an end and I am going to celebrate that fact by climbing up Mt Diablo over the weekend after a breakfast of pomegranate mimosas with new friends and then going to a farm in Occidental to sit by a bomb fire and have a few moments to say goodbye to the year and everything it takes with it. There are things I am happy to take with me from 2007 and things I am very happy to leave behind with the year. There are things I am grateful for that I like to say out loud. Sometimes I find saying them out loud is a powerful tool...to take a moment and reflect on them as the year passes. 

So....

I am grateful that I am alive and that I have my health and that I have curly hair. I am grateful that I get to play music and write songs and have people want to listen to them. I am grateful that I get to do this with my life. I am grateful that I get to travel around the world and have amazing experiences with amazing people along the way. I am grateful that I am Australian, and that I like to eat vegemite.  I am grateful that I have food for my belly, clothes for my body (very grateful for the socks on my feet right now, it's bloody cold here) and that I can still laugh, sometimes until tears are rolling down my face. I am grateful that I have a place to call home right now, and a place to call home tomorrow and the prospects of a place to call home after tomorrow. I am grateful for my family and for the people who love me. I am grateful for having the chance to learn more about what I want, and don't want, in my life and out of my life. I am grateful that I have the chance to find and leave some of those things. I am grateful that tomorrow is a new day and that I learn to not be quite so hard on myself as each day passes. I am grateful for love in my life...for new love and old love and the excitement and familiarity of those. I am grateful for the lessons I have learnt this year...lessons on listening to myself, being proud of my journey.  I am grateful for people around me (both close and not so) who know me and know when to tell me to pull my head in and who teach me about laughing at and loving myself. I am grateful that I am learning to be gentle with myself and because of that, more open and vulnerable to the world and the experiences that await me in it. I am grateful for a new cd and for the songs on that cd. I am grateful for the people who have booked shows, turned up to shows, helped at shows, clapped at shows, laughed and cried at shows, given me a roof and a meal and a hug (and of course for the nice glasses of red wine along the way), believed in what I do and how I do it and continue to give me a thumbs up a long the way. I am grateful for new beginnings, new chapters, new phases. I am grateful for the stories people have shared with me...stories of them that make my story a little more normal...and sometimes, not so.  I am grateful that I have choice and a mind to occasionally work out what those choices are. I am grateful that I have my friend Lou's dog, Lucy, here to keep me company while I type this..and that she is sitting on my foot and keeping it warm. 

I am grateful for you...and the fact that you check in here to see what's going on and occasionally share part of yourself with me. 

What are you grateful for?