Katy McDermott

Before he died many years ago, my father told me, “Count your blessings, young lady!” I can’t claim he meant it as any sort of deep and lasting legacy-ish statement. I was about 6, and he was probably trying to get me to eat my vegetables by reminding me how many unlucky children had no Brussels sprouts at all. (I don’t think that line of reasoning swayed me much…)

Now that I’m an adult, though, I find that phrase comes in handy a lot, despite my firmly agnostic worldview.

“Count your blessings, young lady.”

To me, it means simply, “if you change how you look at things, you’ll appreciate them more.”

Take grocery shopping. We do it every week, and it’s about as mundane a chore as you can find. Milk? Check. Cereal? Check. Cat litter? Check. Stuff for dinners? Snacks for work? Check and check.

However – and this is the important part – pretend you’re a newly arrived immigrant from a country with a restrictive, totalitarian regime. Years ago, I saw stories on the news about citizens in what was then the Soviet Union waiting in line for hours for a stick of butter and some bootlaces. And while I’m sure the butter-and-bootlace situation has greatly improved, I still use the image.

The average American grocery store contains thousands of colorful choices from apricot jam to Ziploc bags and everything in between. Butter? Try five different brands. And then of course there’s light butter, heart-healthy butter, unsalted butter, and whipped butter (and let’s not even talk about all the other dairy products – there must be 50 different kinds of yogurt alone!) As for bootlaces, just check out the “shoe care” section of the laundry aisle – what color would you like?

See? Imagine that’s your perspective, and what used to be a chore will seem like a miracle.

“Count your blessings, young lady.”

Think about purging and reorganizing the dreaded junk drawer. Could anything be more boring? Is it any wonder we put it off?

My junk drawer at the moment contains (among other things) a pair of scissors that frequently takes itself out on excursions, several half-used rolls of tape, a couple of train schedules, a bunch of take-out menus, a random candy cane, a battered package of airsickness pills purchased at the Dublin airport four years ago, and a spare house key.

Or, as I can choose to think of it, a memory book.

How many presents have I used those scissors and tape to wrap? We brought each one to a party, a time we got together with friends and family for laughter, food, embarrassing stories… Those train schedules call to mind all the homecoming hugs I’ve received from my out-of-state brother and nephew. I only see them once or twice a year, so those visits are extra-special… The take-out menus make me think of all the lovely Friday nights my family and I have enjoyed – the work week over, no desire to cook, how about some Chinese food and what DVD should we watch tonight?… That rogue candy cane must have made a stealthy escape – its compatriots decorated our Christmas tree, our stockings, and half our presents last year. That rogue candy cane, all by itself, makes me remember a truly magical day just this past December: we trimmed our tree, watched heartwarming holiday specials (is there anyone who doesn’t tear up at the Grinch’s ice-cold feet in the snow, incongruously sweet dog, and singing-inspired change of heart?), baked cookies, and listened to Christmas carols like “Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire” (okay, okay – I can only do so much of the Norman Rockwell stuff)… The airsickness pills remind me of a glorious vacation in Ireland, complete with unimaginably gorgeous countryside, lots of Guinness, and an unexpected upgrade to a penthouse suite… And the house key? Simply another reminder of how lucky we are to be homeowners, especially in these precarious economic times.

A reminder, in fact, to “Count your blessings, young lady.”

This past week, we had two snowstorms here in Philadelphia. Our development has no garages, and we watched through frost-encased windows as our cars gradually became individual, indistinguishable igloos. Finally, this past Wednesday night, the snow slackened for an hour or two, and a lot of us residents began the long process of digging out…

Normally, we’d just nod grimly and try not to dump snow on our neighbors’ slowly-emerging vehicles. The conditions on Wednesday, however, were extreme even by blizzard standards. People carried their dogs instead of walking them, shoveling small spaces for the animals to “go.” Neighbors lent each other shovels, passed around snow-melt and salt, exchanged tales of unplowed roads, and a few hardy college kids even brought out snowboards to try on the local hills. Perhaps it was the late hour, perhaps the unexpected camaraderie, but somehow it turned into a party. People chilled beers in snowbanks that are gardens in the spring, and by the end of it, we wound up with a group of folks at the bar in our basement. We made tentative plans to hold a poker game – plans that something tells me will become definite.

New friends.

Another blessing for me to count.

I know you were just trying to get me to eat Brussels sprouts… but thanks, Dad.