A List Of Happy Things

Chick finds it very challenging to sit still for portraits. My camera finds it real challenging to snap a picture when I ask it to. It seems to need to think about it for a couple of seconds first, by then my subject has spied a very tempting bit of detritus or heard some curious noise which needs instant investigation.

If you want to fit in here in Mac, there are a few things you absolutely must have in your yard: a hanging basket, a droopy red Japanese Maple, and a well tended lawn. My mom has gone native and gotten a couple of lovely hanging baskets for the yard. Now we will really fit in. I mean, if we ever mow the lawns and trim them, fertilize them, and water them. Which we won't. I feel like I fit in without these fine horticultural trends, actually. But I never tire of looking at pretty flowers.

I am deeply in love with the night shade family of plants which include: potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants. Not to mention Bella Donna. Which I have no interest in due to the fact that I have no desire to tweak my brain unless it's getting tweaked to feel more normal, not completely hallucinogenic, which is what it feels like to have a nervous breakdown accompanied by auditory hallucinations. I'm not really sure what the charm of a tweaked brain is for some people, but I suppose it's a question of novelty?

Anyway, my favorite foods are: potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant. All nightshades. All feared at one point by one group of people or another. I would go into permanent shock if I was ever told that all my life's problems could be laid at these foods feet; that I had an allergy to any or all of them. I would rather give up cheese than any of these.

Although, cheese tends to pair very well with all of them. Life without cheese? I think I might be breaking out in hives right now.

The pretty husk of a tomatillo. I'm excited to make some tomatillo sauce with these babies. I am new to them and anticipate much fun in uncovering their culinary secrets.

This is the single largest tomato blossom I have ever seen. It belongs to a "Hillbilly" tomato plant and is surrounded by lesser lights. It looks like a sunflower. Incidentally, for anyone worried about the bee situation here in Mac, I'm happy to report that my garden is absolutely buzzing with them. Both honey bees and bumble bees. It's heartening to have so many of them visiting that I actually register worry about accidentally stepping on one.

While my blog is where I unload my mind, whether I'm spilling all it's ugly, or simply making an inventory of what's hanging out in it, and consequently there is quite a lot of dark content here, it's my philosophy that light must always accompany dark. One of the reasons I didn't commit suicide as a teen, and stopped hurting myself, and the reason I was able to get so far without therapy and medication, is largely thanks to my skill in giving myself pep-talks and in recognizing the very small and many things that make me happy. The secret is in constantly pushing the darkness back with great swaths of light and fresh air.

This can be quite challenging when your mood is like thick smoke and burnt to charcoal coals. It's like a spiritual practice. It's about having faith in both yourself and in life's infinite capacity to achieve balance. I suppose it's like maintaining a faith in God for those who are religious. I am not, but I think it's similar. While I am now happy to seek both counseling and take medications to support me in my desire to live a good rich happy life, finding the positive-no matter how seemingly insignificant- is always important. Medication can't do that for you. It's something you must always be practicing for yourself. A therapist can't do this for you either. It's something you have to always be doing for yourself, like brushing your teeth, like breathing.

So here it is; a list of things that make me happy no matter how minute a joy they bring:

Kissing Max's cheeks and temple. He's now old enough that he won't let me do this very often, but I still sneak some in. I inhale him because even though he's developing that little boy scent that will one day be a full on man-stink, I can still get a whiff of the baby he used to be. Of the flesh that I made myself from a little genetic information. Just as sweet as summer morning air.

Staying up late to excitedly discuss everything from politics to art with Philip. This is how we have stayed connected even when life has been dishing us out some really mean twists. He's my favorite person on earth and a great debater. Staying up really late at our age is pretty pricey in the health department, but worth it.

Touching herbs in the garden and smelling my fingers afterwards. Or when I accidentally step on my mint patch and the scent rises lazily and reaches me in a delicate wash of freshness.

Taking a slow tour of my garden to investigate the state of all things living and growing in it. I do this frequently and it gives me a very microscopic view of everything. Minute growth, pollination as it is happening-the pollen dusting on leaves, the pests I see in infancy and either let the good bugs deal with or sometimes dispatch myself. I almost see my plants growing in real time. The garden tour is a small ritual that grounds me and delights me.

Cooking food. Soup is the foundation of this joy because it was the first thing I learned to make all on my own. It is infinitely variable and therefore fertile ground for the imagination. I love to master new methods; new meals. I love that cooking is an opportunity to give something to the people you love (including yourself) that has incredible intrinsic value. It's the ultimate love because without it, we all die.

Cleaning my house. But only if I can play loud music and everyone is gone so I don't have to think about them, hear them, worry over them, or be interrupted by them. This activity is deeply cathartic to me. I am not good at keeping my house tidy, we're messy people and I'm always far too occupied to pick up socks all day long. So cleaning my house is like cleaning the slate. I love any activity that feels like cleaning the slate. Because life is so damn messy. I enjoy the rhythm of cleaning; seeing the dirt disappear under the rule of a sponge or mop; putting everything back in place like neat little soldiers waiting for orders. Afterwards I always realize how shallow my breathing has become and in the cleaned up house I am able to take big lungfuls again. For at least ten minutes.

Taking showers. Or baths. I like getting clean. I'm like my house though, I like a great big scrub down, but I'm careless about upkeep. I spend so much time in the dirt that even when I'm trying to keep myself presentable there is invariably some dirt under my nails that I can't get at, or my eyebrows develop renegade old-man hairs that stick straight out, or the heels of my feet are dry and ugly. Life is a dirty business and I love hot water and soap. Natural good smelling soap that helps to wash away all the dirt and make me squeaky clean and clear my head with the aromatic steam. If I go a day without a shower I generally feel like a warty toad caked in mud who should be living under a rock.

Clean sheets. I've said it before and I couldn't possibly say enough what a pleasure it is to crawl into bed with clean sheets. Cool, crisp, unsmelly...HEAVEN. I am not fond of body odors and sleeping on sheets and breathing on pillows will impart odors that I'm not fond of, so clean sheets once a week are imperative. With our crazy life lately I've gone two weeks without changing the sheets and I have to say that it is one of those little things that adds to the panic. Honestly, I'd change my sheets every couple of days if I could pay someone else to do my laundry.

Grocery shopping (by myself). When I was nineteen years old, freshly moved into my first apartment without a room mate, I was experiencing life post-epiphany. The epiphany came a year earlier and was when I decided to piss or get off the pot: either have done with myself and kill myself off or pick myself up and stop torturing myself physically. (I had not been suicidal for a couple of years but replaced it with cutting). Life doesn't suddenly change color just because you've made an important decision. You still have to work at realizing a new direction. Not cutting myself, and committing myself to living the best life I could meant discovering all the good things about it and embracing them no matter how small. That's when I started to really learn to cook.

A component of cooking is shopping. Before, I just shopped for desperately cheap food, but now I was shopping for ingredients. I started shopping with fresh eyes, seeing the myriad choices in things as common as salt and taking pleasure in weighing my options. I probably scared a lot of people, I know I spied people edging away from me occasionally. I talked to myself A LOT in those days. OUT LOUD. I learned to relish the act of carefully choosing my food. It seemed, and still does feel, like an act of self love. A person who cares about themselves cares about what they're feeding themselves. Taking care to choose those things feels like caring about myself. And now that I have a husband and child, it feels like caring about them too.

The sound of trains. I don't know exactly why. The pleasure it gives me lives somewhere just of to the side of my consciousness. If I had to say why I loved it, it would be something about the passing of time, the hopeful inexorable movement towards the future, and a living link between old and new industry.

Snow. It makes me laugh and dance and releases that swooping rising euphoria that children feel and express in sudden bursts of energy-breaking into a sudden run while whooping and hollering nonsense. I am not saying I want to be buried six feet under snow, nor that I want to see it six months of the year. Take it as a simple declaration. Without the boundaries of circumstances. I love snow. It makes me happy.

There are so many other things that I can add to the list, but the morning is getting away from me fast and there's so much to do today. Now, I am not one to start memes or demand that anyone participate in a group effort of any kind, but I would like to say that it would be absolutely enjoyable to see what makes all of you happy. So if you feel like indulging me, write your own list on your blog!