things i love. . .

do you ever feel instants where you really get it? like you understand the best things and you savour them? i'm having a moment now where i understand some best things and i'm glad for these moments, cuz they're real and they're beautiful and they're what's good about living.

these are some things i love. . .

my husband plays guitar late at night. . i love that. he's good, though he doesn't think that he is. he usually sings too and he always sings with his eyes closed, which is another thing i love, the way he feels music and i feel it too. sometimes i sit on the basement stairs and watch him play when he doesn't know it. Other times i sing with him, which is another thing i love. sometimes we write our songs in the wee hours and the clock is non-existent cuz we don't care. . i love not caring about rules or time or routine. its great to see moments as unduplicatable and special. .

i love when my girls are home and we're all together, me and their dad and them. . it doesn't happen often now with Linds raising her own little family and KK being away at school half the year, and the other half, working or being out with the love of her life! its like the walls of the house reverberate with life and conversation and laughter when we're all here - which i love.

i love when our grandchildren come to visit. I love it when they burst in the door and i hear Jimmy's high pitched voice "Hi!!" He's always first in the door. . he flings off whatever outerwear he's got on. . he loses the shoes and bounds into the front room to get at his toys. I always head him off at the pass to get my hugs and steal my kisses. Eri is always on her mom's hip, usually with a sucky in her mouth. . her strawberry blonde hair hanging in little curls at the nape of her neck. . her blue eyes light up and her arms extend towards me. I love that. . .

i love special occasions and i've been known to go a little bit overboard! like the time Linds looked at my Valentine's Day adornments and said "It look like Valentine's Day threw up in here." She thinks its a Hallmark holiday, i don't care. . i love it and all other similar occasions, Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day, Father's Day, V-Day, birthdays. . i love to celebrate. . i love to make a moderate fuss, not a gaudy, tacky, hyperactive kind of fuss, but a laid back enjoyment type of fuss . i love the chance to go the extra mile to make memories and be good to my family and really enjoy the moment.

i love being outside, i love the feel of air on my skin and the smells of the earth and all that springs from it. I really enjoy being under the sky. . it brings this sense of something, i'm not sure. . . being small, feeling quiet. The sky is full of cool things that if i really consider what they are and the distance they are from where i stand, i can feel like a child and get a break from the burden of always trying to seem sophisticated or 'mature', i love that.

i love it when i can have a great conversation with someone. . when i can listen to them and they listen to me and i don't have any inner dialogue or shifting thoughts. . sometimes its hard to get there, you know? but when you do, its one of the best things.

i love mystery. . that's why i'd never go to a fortune teller. . i don't want to know what's around the corner and I don't believe that's something i should be doing anyway, cuz then it would be like i didn't trust God and i do, and why would i want to mess that up between us? mystery can be scary, but it can also be intriguing and i love that feeling of "What may happen?. . . i don't know!"

i love the feeling of being inspired and going with something because its just meant to be and you know it and its flowing. . .i might be writing; sometimes i can't sleep because i feel like i have to take dictation or something! i might even stay up all night working on something that seems very urgent and i must go with it while its here, i might be brainstorming and ideas are flying at me, it might be creating something with my hands, you know. . . a meal, a dessert, i might be taking pictures and trying different angles and hoping to capture something fantastic. . light, shadow, something cool, something different. . i might get notions to change something that needs changing. . .

i love sorrow. . . which is a bizarre thing to say. . but i don't suppose i love it so much as respect its extreme depth. It brings something to you when you've felt it, it helps you. . it doesn't matter whether i'm swimming in it, which i often have, or whether it belongs to someone else. . . it has this capacity to distill things to their essence. . all the superfluous stuff, it just flies out the window in the presence of sorrow. . its dark and brooding, but when you've tasted it and you've then emerged from your particular experience with it, everything takes on a different quality. . light is lighter, colour is richer and you are changed. .

there's so much more, i know -- endless possibilities. . but i think this is good just now.

what do you love?