If we were having coffee together on this Saturday morning, I would tell you how grateful I am for my sight. As you may know, we have just come back from holiday, and I was thinking how much I would have missed out on during the holiday if I could not see. Hearing is, of course, important too, and so is tasting, smelling and feeling, but not being able to see would be difficult to cope with. I do not see very well, but what I can see, I am immensely grateful for.
I am grateful that I can see
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enough to boil a kettle-full of water, to pour the hot water into the cafetière on top of a generous heap of freshly grounded coffee beans and then to add a dollop of cream to a steaming cup of blissful blackness
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the frothy pink blossom that has exploded on the flowering cherries trees this week
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my two black cats cuddling together in a pool of sunlight
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the satisfied smile on my husband’s face as he repairs the fencing posts damaged by the winter storms
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the first swallows returning from their visit to sunnier southern parts
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to plant the new Cox’s Orange Pippin apple tree in the orchard
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to weed and till the vegetable garden in preparation or this years sowing and planting
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the horses getting frisky with spring exuberance in their meadow where the grass is starting to grow with renewed determination
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to read e-mails, shopping lists, musical scores, a newspaper, an engrossing book
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to take pictures and to look at pictures I have taken before, pictures of my childhood, of friends and family I miss, of places I have been to and would like to go back to and of places I would like to visit one day.
I am also very grateful that I can see well enough to write. This week I have spent a lot of time writing, about our Transformational Retreats, especially as I am designing an optional coaching program to follow the retreats and help participants put the changes they have decided to make during the retreat into practice once they get home.
I wish you an exciting weekend, full of beautiful/amusing/fascinating/compelling sights, insights…and vision.
“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision.” – Helen Keller
This post is part of the MJP Gratitude Challenge and the <strongTen Things of Thankful Challenge(#10Thankful). This post is also part of the #Weekend Coffee Share collection of blog posts, hosted by Diana of Parttime Monster.com.
Dr Margaretha Montagu 
A very thoughtful post
Our sight is truly something to be very grateful for. Beautiful post. I love the photo at the top!
Thank you, Maria! Hope you had a good week. I see the Californian picture series is coming on leaps and bounds.
My pleasure! Yes, we’re having a blast exploring Northern California 🙂
I have such terrible eyesight! It can be corrected with contacts/glasses, thank goodness–but if I lived very far in the past I wouldn’t have those options, so I’m pretty aware of the blessing, of little things like being able to read a clock when I wake up in the middle of the night; being able to see well enough for reading and writing—and driving, etc.
Me too – I now have to wear glasses for short AND longsightedness, but at least I can still see!
haha…Yes, my contacts are very strong because my eyesight is so bad that I’d have to hold a large print book an inch from my nose to be able to see it without glasses/contacts.
Good things to be thankful for. 🙂
A very good reminder to us all Margaretha. We should not take any of our senses for granted. Too often we become immersed in material pursuits and forget what is important. As I get older I see just how much I rely on my eyesight to do all those things that bring me joy and so your post today was especially touching.
I would have to think about coming up with 10 things. There is one that I am thankful. I can still walk. There are reportsvof swallows being sight in the area. It looks like they are back early.
It certainly does, even for here in the south of France, they have arrived early. Have a good week, Betty.
Some years ago, I was reading a book by Pema Chödrön while riding on the bus when in a passage she asked the question: how would you look at the world at this here and now moment if you knew you going to go completely blind in thirty seconds? The I looked up from the book and stared out the bus window, at the tall green trees in the northwest neighborhood of Portland, OR, the blue sky with the small white clouds, then at the people on the bus…I was overwhelmed and began to do that quiet weep one does on buses and in movie theaters.
I live with the constant threat of losing my sight (the little I have left), Doug, so I know exactly what you mean with the “quiet weep”. I try to spend some time every day to mindfully look at what I can see and sometimes the sheer overwhelming intensity of it makes me weep too.
I loved your list of things your were glad you could see. Made me smile. I had always said I would prefer as an older person to lose my sight rather than my hearing as I think you are isolated from the world when you can’t hear and knowing what things look like I can see them inside my head but having temporarily lost my sight for a couple of days I too am glad I can see. Helen Keller’s quote is great. Have a good week.
I don’t know which is worse – losing one’s sight or one’s hearing – I am just very grateful that I still have both. Have a very good week too, Irene.
Thanks
Sight but no vision….what a perfect quote to follow up such a beautiful list.
Thank you, May, such a rare and precious commodity, vision.
And we take our sight for granted until it begins to lessen. So many beautiful things to see and notice if we take the time.
Great post. Thanks!
Snap! Just this second wrote a comment on your MJP gratitude post!
LOL. Thank You Margaretha! 🙂
Being thankful for sight is a good one. I think pictures are the big one for me, that I wish I could still see. Oh, well writing and reading too. I do that with the help of technology, but it would be so much easier the old fashioned way.
🙂
I have been including some of the few things I can still see in my thankful posts lately, like the sun setting last night as a matter-of-fact.
Love the quote at the end.
I am hugely reassured to know that there is technology that can help when one can no longer see well enough to read/write. Even so, it must be hard. Glad to know you can still see the sunset. One of my favourite things too.