I.74 — Thanks Without an Address

Gratitude does not need someone to receive it.

You may have been taught that thankfulness is a message, that it goes somewhere, that without an addressee it is only a feeling with no post. Test that. Sit with one ordinary good thing — warm water, a working body, a friend who stayed — and let thankfulness rise for it with no one to send it to. Watch whether the feeling needs the address or whether it stands on its own, the way the smell of bread stands on its own.

It stands. What it does is what it always did: it opens the hand. A grateful hand is not clutching, because it has noticed it already holds enough. The thanks was never for anyone. It was the sound of a grip letting go.

So give thanks daily, to no one, for what is here on loan. Do not pretend there is a listener and do not pretend the thanks is smaller for the lack of one. It is the same size. It only has nowhere to go but back into the day it came from, which is exactly where it is useful.