Tiny Joys

Do you hear soundtracks in your head as you walk through your days? I do. Maybe it’s because I listen to nostalgic music from bygone eras or watch movies with sweeping scores. Maybe it’s because I’m terribly, horribly sentimental. It might be because I see life in photographs, pictures always deserve a musical backdrop. My mind notices and frames scenes constantly. I see them, and somehow I hear them too. 

In a year that touched on what felt like every life altering circumstance possible - devastating  heartbreak, joyful celebration, challenges, changes, constant processing and adapting, I’ve been trying to get back into a pattern of the daily habits I used to hold that have fallen to the wayside. One of those habits is noting tiny joys. I try to keep it small. Just writing down three a day. Since recommitting to actually looking for them, I come across them constantly. 

A few from this past week:

The long warm shadows of the trees across the Post Office parking lot at 2pm on sunny November day. 

Leaves falling like snow when the wind blows.

And the leaves skittering across my path as I walk that sound like a childhood memory. 

The color of red across the street from where I sit and write, in one of the last trees still holding on to it’s leaves. 

Coffee “out” served in a real cup and saucer.

A greenhouse full of endless pointsettias for the coming season. 

Long hugs from my adult children. 

The new boat finally feeling like home on our overnight. 

The Jazz Holidays Radio on Pandora (snuck before Thanksgiving)

The settled feeling of drying orange slices for the holidays, not because I want orange slices but because the act of producing them over a long six hours feels like living in the moment. 

Trading two minute end of day foot rubs with someone you love. 

Warm light pouring from evening windows during the longer nights. 

The way boiling water sounds different when you pour it. 

There are so many things to notice that can shift our day, our mindset either way, aren’t there? Let’s keep looking for the good ones.