Today I am grateful for Heartprints. Although my blog is named Heartprintsdotcom and my blog for The Patch is named Heartprints, it occurred to me that I have never explained how I came to pick the name.
A long, long time ago, when I came to find a new spirituality and a greater self-awareness I found myself noticing things I had never really noticed before. Some of those things were so beautiful that they felt like they were stamped in my heart, with each being as unique as a fingerprint. Sometimes they are so powerful that I actually say “Bing! Heartprint!” Aloud. I began jotting them down. . .hence the name “Heartprints”. They have morphed into gratitudes, which, in my questionable mind, are heartprints with an attitude. Here are some examples:
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A very friendly, mentally challenged man who comes to the YMCA to swim ten short laps is walking in today singing, talking to himself and asking everyone he sees when their birthday is. No matter what date they give him he tells them it is the same birthday as a Muppet character. He is carrying a bright yellow, school bus shaped lunch box. Bing! Heartprint!
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As I’m driving down the street, slowing for a stoplight, I look into a nearby yard and see six little kids in Skittle-colored jackets sitting in a tree laughing and dangling from various branches. Bing! Heartprint!
A less than three-year-old, copper-headed-tornado-pigtailed swimmer wanabe is coming into the Y for another class. She is walking past the pool windows and sees me, her swimming teacher bouncing around in my aerobics class. She hops up and down waving frantically, pointing and dragging her mom over, too. Her nose is pressed to the glass. As mom drags her off she hops along in a sideways crabwalk and waves as though she is on a tarmac leading a plane land. Bing! Heartprint!
A friend comes over with a bottle of wine, which we wickedly drink in the afternoon, convinced it must be five p.m. someplace. We get silly before the first sip, share dreams and wishes as we laugh and laugh. Bing! Heartprint!
My husband tells one of his endless jokes to another friend on the phone. His face lights up like Christmas when it’s well-received. Bing! Heartprint!
A big fat robin splashes in the birdbath. Bing! Heartprint!
Ibu Zainuddin, a very old, incredibly beautiful Indonesian woman, wearing traditional batik, is sitting on a matt in her garden when I arrive for a visit. She is gently encouraging tender new plants to defy the brutal Jakarta heat and flourish. Bing! Heartprint!
I’m grateful that Heartprints are everywhere, every minute of every day. I’m often asked how I can write about something every day. . .where do I get my ideas from. . .do I ever struggle to find them? I confess that some days I actually say, “I have no idea what I’m going to be grateful for today!” Then I forget about it. I get out of my own way and before I know it. . .Bing! Another Heartprint stamps its way into my insides . . .a unique fingerprint on my heart.
