It’s Thankful Tuesday. I spent last night participating in one of the great American summer pastimes. I joined my husband, my brother and my sister in law at a Giants/Cubs game. We ate hotdogs and garlic fries.
We also drank hot chocolate. Aimee and I covered our legs with a blanket. We wore three layers of clothes, mittens, and I sported a lovely yellow winter hat. Yes, this is month of August in San Francisco.
I’ve always been a summer girl. I love being hot. I love pools and air conditioning and stopping at the snow cone stand and playing outside all evening with shorts on. My favorite memories are warm memories. My birthday, my husband’s birthday, my son’s birthday, Young Life camp, childhood sprinkler days in the front yard. I appreciate fall. I’m thrilled for spring. Winter is necessary. But the world is most itself in summertime.
That’s why I was tentative about summer in San Francisco before we moved here. Mark Twain told me the little I knew: “The coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco,” he said.
My husband had recited Twain’s quote to me last summer while we packed our living room. I piled books in boxes, soothing myself with the notion that Mark Twain was always melodramatic. I could handle a chillier summer. Here’s what I didn’t understand:
- That my heater would be on for the entire month of July.
- That there really is no such thing as an outdoor pool in the city of San Francisco.
- That so much of what I adore about summer, even down to the type of food I love to eat, is contingent on warm weather.
Yes, my idea of summer is a Romantic notion. Yes, all of you who’ve been suffering through the biggest heat wave in years don’t feel sorry for my summer in the cloudy 50s. But, I have to tell you, I’m jealous of you. I long for heat and tank tops and shorts. I long for sunburns and tomatoes and mozzarella by the pool. I long for “summer reading” and late nights on the porch. I long for ice-cold lemonade.
So why am I writing this on Thankful Tuesday? It’s because I can’t help but be reminded that all my current summer-less sadness is not doing me a lot of good. And I want to be thankful to be here in this beautiful city. I have to admit I’ve spent the past two months counting down till I can get back to a land with summertime. But that’s not fair to the time I’m here presently. Ungrateful is not who I want to be.
So what does it mean to be grateful for something you’re not grateful for? I know I can be grateful for my family and our opportunity to be in this lovely city. I can be grateful for my friends here and my church. I can be grateful for the moments I’ve had traveling out of the city and into the sunshine this summer. But can I actually be grateful for the summer I haven’t had?
What does it mean to be thankful for something you’re not naturally thankful for?
7 Comments
August 10, 2010 at 2:49 pm
1. love the blog.
2. great quote but twain didn’t say it, it’s anonymous.
August 10, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Good to know, Sims! That’s why we should never trust the internet! So glad you like the blog…
August 10, 2010 at 3:06 pm
I don’t have any answers for you. I grew up on the coast of Washington. I expect rain and a sweatshirt to be part of the Fourth of July celebrations. Now I live in Las Vegas. It’s 112 most summer days. We don’t go outside after noon if we can avoid it. Maybe we could trade with you for a week?
August 10, 2010 at 9:31 pm
I can remember Hope praying once, “And thank you, God, that our washer broke.” I was not feeling particularly thankful for that at the moment and so I gave her the stink eye in the middle of our prayers until I realized that my little girl knew more about what it meant to “give thanks in every circumstance” than I did. She was thanking God because, in her childlike faith, she understood that God has a hand in every thing. And I know that while he may or may not cause those things which may be unpleasant to us, he is most certainly present in those circumstances and sanctifying us all the while. And that’s something to be thankful for.
Also, I had a friend who once said that every unpleasantness is an opportunity to long for heaven. When she was sick, she was experiencing her “heaven is better” body. When her car broke down, it was dubbed her “heaven is better” car. So, maybe San Fransisco summers are your, “heaven is better” weather. Cause I have to believe that heaven will be a perfect 75-80 degrees all the time.
August 11, 2010 at 6:30 am
hmmmm…knowing that God works for godd in all thiss for tose who believe? I am thankful for my boss moving on, my son’s learning challenges???? I will try!
August 11, 2010 at 5:00 pm
As a child I had to be taught how to be thankful, and how to show appreciation. Was it natural for me? no, am I glad now that my parents insisted? yes.
Maybe years down the track, you will be glad for trying to be thankful for things you weren’t necessarily feeling at the time.
August 13, 2010 at 10:44 am
hi micha,
its merideth from city church! my husband forwarded this to me. first time i read your blog. it is great! you said it better than i could express! I am with you, lady! i’m trying really hard to be thankful. in a couple more weeks the weather will get warmer, probably not warm enough for shorts, but a light coat
! i’ll see you around