First and foremost, the transition into awareness each morning. The knowing that I am breathing and alive. And that when my eyes open, I can still see. Blurry though it may be some days. That next to me is my amazing wife and that we are waking into a life we have dedicated ourselves to building together.
For the morning flurry on workdays because we each have work to get to and enjoy spending our hours doing. Because Harry is patiently playing statue by his bowl until the first sound of the can being opened, his cue to become a meowing and insistent being who sometimes even tries to help. And when Pippa joins in, I can’t help but smile at the cuteness of their kitty pleas coming through in stereo.
For the ambient temperature of comfort in our small apartment. For the clutter that makes me crazy most days, even as I know it to be a luxury. It is true, the old poem/saying about dirty dishes being a symbol for having food and laundry for clothes. And furballs on the rug for fur-babies on my lap.
On weekends: Returning to bed after getting up briefly to feed cats and then nudging my love to “scooch” so we can have Sunday Snuggles. For the smile on her face as she says “I love Sunday Snuggles…” For a bank account that supports running all over town on food shopping day and for sitting in restaurants in between pandemic waves.
For books, old school and electronic. For fascinating websites. For free workshops. For a world worth knowing and studying and exploring. For questions that want answering, even if they lead mostly to more questions.
For my small but mighty circle of friends. Each intelligent, compassionate, witty, and magical in their own way. Whether we’ve been friends for 40 years or only 4, they keep me going more than they know.
Most deeply, for to this world, this planet, this earth. The hummingbirds and stellar jays and chickadees and hawks. The cedars and Douglas firs and madronas and oaks. The granite and pumice and agates and onyx. The cumulus and cirrus and cirrocumulus and stratus…. The McKenzie and Pacific and Gulf and Lost Lake. The Hoh and the Redwoods and Joshua Tree and Denali. For fires in hearths and campgrounds and stoves. For mysticism and myths and miracles and mysteries.
For stillness and solitude, surrender and simplicity. This moment. And this. This breath. For the ebb and flow of breath and tide, of life and death, of all that is, of the atom and the supernova. For the me and the you, the we and the us. For the all and the everything and the One.