The Glad Game

'There is something about everything that you can be glad about, 

if you keep hunting long enough to find it.' 

                                                                                 Eleanor H Porter, 'Pollyanna'

When I was young, the film 'Pollyanna' with Hayley Mills in the title role was one of my favourites. Featured regularly on TV, I must have watched it five or six times and it made a big impression on me. I guess it was that film that first alerted me to the practice of gratitude: the Glad Game, as Pollyanna called it. Of course, you can have too much of it but generally speaking it is a principle that I've found helpful, particularly in seeing me through some of the tougher times in my life. 

Many times during this pandemic I've made myself deliberately focus on the good to lift my spirits and keep from getting too down. Being able to get out for exercise, consciously enjoying the beauty in the natural world and noticing afresh the local delights of the World Heritage Site I'm fortunate to call 'home' have been useful strategies to keep me rooted in the present. They stop me catastrophizing and excessively worrying about the uncertain future.  

I regularly walk past the allotments beside Salts Mill and watching the unfolding of colour there through the seasons is always a source of joy. Now the gladioli are in full bloom, tall and stately spikes of colour. Somewhat old-fashioned flowers nowadays, they remind me of my grandmother, who used to grow them. She called them 'gladdies' - so I guess that was what reminded me of the Glad Game. They must surely bring joy to most people? 

I'm lucky that I can bring them home in a photograph and play with them, attempting some creative double exposures. I have not yet perfected the technique but for me it's a good way of 'being in the present', an antidote to the gloom and anxiety in the big wide world. We all need that.