Gratitude, Mile by Mile

What a weekend to be in New York.

Saturday was Halloween: Joy, community, candy, and New Yorkers showing off their creativity, as only New Yorkers can. And then came Sunday, the NYC Marathon.

I have gone to the Marathon pretty religiously since I moved here. From my first apartment on the Upper West Side (back before you needed tickets to watch runners cross the finish line!), to racing across the five boroughs to cheer on running friends, to the past several years camped out at the Harlem Run Table around the corner from my home and the studio, it has become a yearly ritual. The Marathon is everything I LOVE about New York: the fall, using our bodies consciously to their limit, and (perhaps most of all) community. What a perfect way to kick off a month where we always center gratitude.

This year's marathon was no exception. I gathered with friends, cheered on old friends, teachers, and many strangers, and admired the creativity and hilarity of the signs New Yorkers come up with (shout-out to the MANY "You can see everything" references!). I leave every Marathon Sunday giddy, exhausted (despite running zero miles), full of joy, and a little extra grateful to live in this city.

To me, a big part of gratitude is the ability to really see the beauty in front of you. It is a widening or sharpening of your lens, its taking a breath or a step back, so that you can appreciate what is wonderful, big or small.

The magic of the Marathon is that it makes this easy. What the runners are doing is SO big (some might say crazy!) that we are forced to really take it in.Thousands of runners from all over the world, thousands more cheering them on, all moving (mostly) seamlessly through the streets of New York. It is so impressive that we cannot help but take note and get caught up in the excitement.

New York is a busy city, and we are, on the whole, fast-moving people. But this weekend shows how good New Yorkers really are at embodying gratitude and joy. We may work hard, move fast, and be sarcastic in our praise, but even while - literally - RACING, we appreciate the good, and we appreciate each other.

This November, what are you grateful for? And how can you experience that gratitude every day? Try this: once a day, pause, take one deep breath, and think of at least one thing you are grateful for. Perhaps it comes right away. Perhaps you will need to widen your lens to better appreciate something steady and quiet that supports you. Maybe you need to sharpen it to see the beauty in something that you might not otherwise have noticed. But taking that time is worth it . Happy Novembers Yogis!