The Joy of Ordinary

I’m waiting for the wintry onslaught with a fresh pot of strong coffee. It’s almost an espresso roast that could walk on its own; just the strength I love. I got all my work done yesterday so that I can enjoy Winter’s blast in lazy comfort today; reading, listening to music, working on some art, meditating, and a napping.

For a while now I’ve been feeling this wonderful sense of “settled” growing in me. It's not a “give up” settled, but more a contentedness. An almost cosmic sense of having exactly what I need and not longing for anything more. If I had to put it into a statement it would be, “I am here, right now in this very moment, with everything I need and I don’t want for more.” I’m not rich, not famous, not powerful or even “worldly” to much of a degree. There are places I’d love to go I know I’ll never get to. Things I’d like to see in person I know I won’t. Good people in the world I will never meet. Sometimes I eat too much, have one Old Fashioned too many, stay up later than I should, sleep later than I intended, and sometimes don’t get everything done in the day I’d hoped to. Strangely enough that gives me a profound sense of comfort; that everything is okay. It’s a deeper sense of happiness and contentedness sprinkled with a dusting of a profound confidence as their product. The ordinariness of my life, the joy of the every day and the sense of comfort and place that accompanies it is absolutely delicious.

COVID's Rewards

I was just out walking the dog. As spring is beginning to take hold after a particularly rough end to winter I got to thinking about COVID. I have had my moments of COVID fatigue, to be sure. And while I go get a bit weary in waiting for my turn to be vaccinated, overall I'm glad for the experience. Over the past year I've become much more self-aware and my sense of being grounded in who and what I am has become more solidified.

There are those anxious for this all to be over so we can "get back to normal." That life and its daily dynamic is never returning. I feel sorrow for those groping and gasping for that "before" life. They don't see the gifts and opportunities of the past year. They've squandered the rarest of opportunities. The chance to read, to learn a new skill, to take up a new hobby, or to simply spend quality time with one's self.

While I didn't learn to play an instrument, learn to knit, or work jigsaw puzzles, I found greater parts of myself that were waiting for me to come find them. I not only found them, I embraced them. And that is a greater reward than any knit cap or 500-piece puzzle of the Eiffel Tower.