A Few of My Favorite Things

My heart has been feeling sick lately, and it's been very difficult to sit down and think of something to write. But I was at work yesterday and a little sumthin sumthin popped into my head, followed by the thought, "Of course I would be inspired when I'm busy and far from my computer!" I think it definitely reflects the fragmented, random pieces that have been making up my life the last few months. . . 

I love when the last lunch customer leaves the cafe in the afternoon when it is gray and drizzling. Yesterday, "Riders On the Storm" came up on the playlist just as the door swung shut on the last stranger. My coworker propped the door open to let out the heat from the griddles, and I got to decompress to the melancholic sound of the Doors and the smell of a cold spring-time rain. A spontaneous convergence of perfectly favorable variables trumps a deliberately crafted moment, in my book--though there are many fine deliberately crafted moments. 

I love when I'm "rolling around in the bed" in the morning, as I like to call it, and my dog comes trotting in to jump on the bed. He absolutely refuses to sleep on the bed during the night--he actually prefers to sleep in another room entirely--but it's like he can hear me thinking and comes to get his head scratched. Even more than this, I love those mornings when the husband leaves particularly early and Toby crawls into his spot to sleep beside me until it's time for me to get up. 

I love the sun. I love waking up half an hour after dawn and seeing the early morning light on the brick. There is a corner of our building visible in one of our windows, and I've become addicted to the sight of the sharp angle cutting into a freshly lit blue sky. I love just before late afternoon, when the sun is hovering right above the armory and angling straight into the western windows. It pools in front of my feet and makes it hard to see the computer screen, but it is the best time to take a nap. 

Most of all I love those spring, fall, and most-of-summer sunny days when I can tie the dog up in front of our shop. I check on him often, not so much to see if he's okay, but to experience his happiness at getting to be outside. The sight of my happy sun dog on the pavement, with one leg crossed over the other and his head half-turned over his shoulder and half-flipped upside down as he regards me contently, is the best sight in the world. 

Life lately has not been so much rough as dissatisfying. I don't have what I want and I don't seem to know how to get what I want. It is an exercise in patience and an opportunity to learn--I will be sure to talk about it a little here. But it has also made it possible to experience the skeevy side of human nature, and it bothers me. Even so, there are moments, many, many moments where I can take a deep breath and be happy that I'm alive.