Gratitude with Altitude: Spotting Blessings Beyond the Treeline
- Michele Spahr
- Jun 4
- 2 min read
“Gratitude is a practice that shifts your focus from what your life lacks to the abundance that is already present.” - Brene Brown
Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you: I’m always looking for an excuse to bring people together. Birthdays, graduations, retirements, going-away parties, coming-out parties; book club on Thursday, line-dancing on Friday, “happy-it’s-Tuesday” pickleball day.
I thrive on community—I need my tribe, my village, my people.
So imagine my surprise when that very tribe flipped the script and threw a party for my 54th birthday. As I replay the laughter and clinking glasses in my mind, an undeniable wave of gratitude settles over me.
I had no intention of writing another blog so quickly after writing This Too Shall Pass—And So Will the Cake: A Birthday Love Letter, yet this public journal has become surprisingly therapeutic. I find myself looking forward to the moment, where I sit at my dining-room table and let my gaze drift out my window and settle over the view of the Mountain on the horizon.
The view shifts with every season. Sometimes I find her standing tall and proud against the harsh cold weather. Other times she is vibrant with color, the forest floor humming with life. In other seasons her trees sway and truly dance.
And then there are days when the canopy is so dense and thick with foliage, she nearly disappears and if you didn’t know to look beyond the green, you might miss her altogether. In those moments I have to look harder - peer through the branches, adjust my perspective and—on purpose—search for her beauty and strength.
It isn’t the mountain that changes; it’s our perspective. Our blessings—quiet and steadfast—are always there, even when they slip from view behind life’s dense canopy.
Gratitude works the same way: though abundance may hide beneath tangled obligations and loud distractions, it remains as solid as the ridgeline, waiting for us to notice. And when we’re lucky, we have a devoted tribe willing to clear the path and hike beside us all the way to the summit. For that—I’m profoundly thankful. To my friends, my family, my steadfast mountain-spotters—thank you for reminding me where to look.
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