This is fine. It was simply where I was at. Sitting inside a migraine headache thinking about the sorrow I have felt, and especially the pain of last December, when I was in the process of losing my husband to a divorce, my friends to a disagreement, and a family member to a disease. Last year grief assaulted me daily like waves crashing against a person holding onto a slippery wall trying not to get pulled out into the sea. I suppose it is only natural to experience a relapse in the grieving process.
But the word hate struck me. It made me think of the Japanese writer Sei Shonagon, who wrote basically as a courtesan while living in the palace of an Empress around one thousand years ago. I learned about her in a writing class when I read an essay of hers from The Pillow Book.
I didn't get it at the time.
She wrote lengthy lists on silly subjects: hateful things, things that are elegant, how to write letters correctly, etc. etc. It didn't make sense to me. This wasn't rocket science, it wasn't anything revealing or inspiring, it wasn't a confession to a horrible ordeal, a memoir of the major events in her life. It wasn't anything but a close look at the daily occurrences and encounters in her life. It certainly wasn't the key to understanding life's mystery.
Now, of course, I realize it was.
How wonderfully present this woman had to be in order to be completely absorbed in the daily details! How free she must have been while writing this from ruminating and dwelling in the past, from fearing and worrying about the future. Isn't that the real secret to appreciating life? To be able to drink in what is immediately present and to find beauty in simple pleasures?
In honor of Sei Shonagon and in order to counteract the hate filling up yesterday's blog, I now write a list of eleven things I love:
1. I love my sound machine--the noise of artificial rain filling my apartment. It is almost as good but not quite nearly as the sound of real rain falling on the window, the quiet coolness of everything in the world being cleansed from above one drop at a time.
2. I love answering the trivia question correctly at Caribou coffee in the mornings. When I answer correctly that Maine is indeed the only state that touches only one other in the U.S. I feel inexplicably satisfied. Ha! Take that big corporation- that will be ten cents off my latte.
3. I love the daily ritual of reading my horoscope--preferably from a real newspaper so I can feel the griminess of newsprint over the prediction of my day.
4. I love opening my mailbox--the anticipation of what will be inside, of how many pieces of mail I get, of whether or not I will have a bill to pay, or whether or not there's junk mail. A good day means no bills, no one to answer to--but a really good day means a letter or better yet, a Christmas photo card, from a friend.
5. I love posting Christmas photo cards on my fridge. I love picking the spot, I love tearing off a little piece of masking tape, I love seeing the new picture every day. I often let the cards stay up until February. One time it was April.
6. I love reading trashy magazines while I run on the elliptical machine. The more gossip about celebrities the better. I never buy People or Cosmo on my own, but I do so love to read it at the gym.
7. I love child's pose best in yoga. My arms stretching out ahead of me, muscles extending along my back, my forehead resting on the floor or the mat, the utter surrender I feel in my shoulders.
8. I love lighting candles and watching them through the evening--the soft scent, soft wax, soft light. Everything feels cozier by candlelight.
9. I love applying eye make-up. I love the careful work of outlining the eye, the decision of color and shading strategy based on time of day and planned activity, the transformation that occurs each day.
10. I love writing with a juicy pen--especially one with a nice gel grip. I love watching my own handwriting appear in loops and messy swirls all over the page. I love the ease of the pen gliding over the paper.
11. I love unexpected friendly encounters with strangers-- the genuine discussion about dogs occurring on the sidewalk near a lake, the sincere conversation about a cashier's two-year-old daughter currently obsessed with Tinker Bell, the shared dismay over sub-zero weather. The simple smiles that brighten up the day.
Turns out there is a lot of love in my life after all.
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