On a perfect day, so far

This morning Jam Guy and I woke up and had a lazy morning before heading out in our new old truck to find a few garage sales and hit up our favorite secondhand store. We came home with a pair of nice, dark-wood framed mirrors to replace the fugly bathroom mirror in my office space, a large buffet that, once repainted, will work perfectly in the treatment room as a surface and storage space for acupuncture supplies, a cushy old chair upholstered in a pretty sage-and-peach faded stripe pattern that works perfectly on our sun porch, and a couple of fancy vintage speakers that Jam Guy is now happily tinkering with. On the way home, we stopped at a farm stand and bought a half-flat of freshly picked strawberries, which we set between us on the wide bench seat of the truck and ate an unbelievable quantity of on the way home, staining our mouths and hands red. The way home itself, scented with strawberries, was a lazy country road weaving between corrals of indifferent horses, rows of wine grapes, more yard sales and strawberry plants and fruit orchards.

Now that we're home, I'm getting ready to pick a bucketful of mint and brew some sweet mint tea, which might turn into mint juleps later if this warm summery air hangs around into the evening. While that simmers, I'm going to start mixing up some Early Bird Granola, for which I am indebted to Miss May in the Bay, who not only introduced me to this delicious treat from her current hometown of Brooklyn (shout-out to Brooklyn!) but also linked the recipe on her blog.

So much to be grateful for is not like too much candy; it's not something that tires your spirit or hurts your head as more and more waves of gratitude break over you. What it does is open your eyes wider and wider to all the pieces of your life that merit your thanksgiving, all the little and big pieces that you didn't see the day before or the day before that. Your eyes widen, become kaleidoscopic, turn multi-faceted like the eyes of bees, taking in all the contrast and the beauty that form the building blocks of your life. It is a small and an inside evolution, a survival mechanism, a breath-by-breath way to keep your heart from exploding with joy.