Thank you

This pic was not arranged but found and framed

I understand, I said to my friend Dale, that to be grateful is a good thing yet, frankly, I do not feel grateful at all. If you're not grateful then you deprive yourself of a lot of positive feelings, Dale retorted. I have no problem understanding that but I still do not feel grateful, I said. 

And then, I started thinking about it. And tried to identify something, some person, some event, I could be grateful for. It wasn't difficult at all: I was grateful for my parents, I was grateful for having fallen in love, 35 years ago, with a beautiful and desperate woman, I was grateful for experiencing this strange thing called life.  

"Get down on your knees in the morning when you get out of bed and say, 'Please.' Before you get into bed at night, get down on your knees again and say, 'Thank you.'", read a text by an anonymous recovering alcoholic.

Life seems like a dream, I said to my friend Takako on a warm Sunday evening in Santa Cruz do Sul, whereupon she quoted a Haiku that she had learned in school that said: Thank you for this delightful dream.