Ceilings

It all started with ceilings.

Some of our very good friends were suddenly without one.  After rebuilding their lives from a lost business and having to sell their dream home to buy and renovate a fixer upper, they had one last big project to finish.  The roof.  They had spent the day tearing off old shingles to prepare for the next day's re-roofing, when it hit.  Out of nowhere a terrible storm with 80 mph winds blew in.  They scrambled to cover the exposed roof with tarps before the clouds tore open with fury, but did not make it.  Through the evening and all night long they listened to the pouring rain, watching it seep through the tarps, into the insulation, through the light fixtures and down the walls.  Their beautifully renovated walls, paint and flooring were seeping with moisture.  They mopped puddles, caught what they could with buckets, but it was not enough.  They watched as their ceilings, now heaving under the weight of saturated insulation, began to bow.  All they could see was two years of work being washed away in one disastrous night.

We heard about it in the morning.  Sending out a clarion call for help through the powers of modern technology, friends and neighbors arrived to do what we could.  We started cutting into ceilings, catching hundreds of pounds of soggy insulation and crumbling sheetrock in the process.  We tried to help them find their way out of their disaster.

Hours later, half their home was without ceilings.  You could look through the roof rafters and see the sky, now bright and clear, beaming into their home.

I laid in bed that night, staring at my ceiling.  I thought about the insulation above me, the dry, sturdy roof over my head and the pristine sheetrock staring back at me.  Had I ever thought before that moment to be thankful for my ceiling?

It was as if life were beckoning me to see, to notice, to appreciate for the first time the blessings all around me.  And above me.

I've often said that writing is like breathing for me.  I simply must do it - to connect with my thoughts and understand the world around me.

Suddenly, writing has also become seeing for me.  Taking the opportunity to notice, and record, moments of gratitude has begun to change the way I look at the world.  It has altered what I appreciate and helped me see life in a new light.

After all, I have a ceiling.