Some Things That Are Nice

I started this post back in early February when it was still deeply cold and dark and the current political administration's atrocities were having a stronger stultifying effect. Since then, the weather has gotten better, there is more sunlight than darkness in a 24-hour cycle, I've been gifted a back deck (in the form of moving to a place with a back deck- thanks Caroline!), I get to regularly see some dogs (how I miss working at a place with office dogs!!), and while the depth of depravity coming out of U.S politics is arguably worse than it was back in February, the ways to push back against it are abundant and sometimes it's so shockingly bad it is also a little funny. 

I know posting screenshots is a deeply

millennial thing to do but I'm old and 

these all made me chuckle. 

 Anyway anyway. This is all a long preamble to say that I don't quite need this list the way I did when I first started writing it, but putting it together was a nice practice when I was feeling low, so now it'll live on the blog.  

• Making miso soup. It really only takes twenty minutes. Some recipes say they are twenty minutes, but then the time between pot on stove and soup in hand is longer than that. But miso soup really is just 20 quick minutes between empty pot on stove and warm bowl in hands. 
• Watching a movie at home in total darkness. Under many warm blankets.    
• The glow from streetlights catching on fluffy snowflakes. 
• Dreams. Not the kind you have when you're asleep.
• Going to a bookstore and drinking a very good cup of drip coffee out of a cute hand-thrown mug while peering over your friend's shoulder* at the pretty pictures in the cookbooks. 
• Doing all the tasks on your to-do list**. 
• Making a filling and simple curry. 
• The warm and pruney feeling in your hands after washing dishes. 
• Letting your friends know you love them.
• Getting into a TV show. Watching the episodes multiple times. Reading every fan theory. Spending a lot of time on the subreddit. Sharing fan art. 
• Accidentally checking out a large print book from the library and feeling very smart and powerful because you’re turning the pages SO quickly. 
• This drawing. 
  
  
  
• And this painting. 
  
   
• Dancing dancing dancing 
• Seeking out a change. Knowing you can handle it. 
• The process of making this drawing 

  

  I can't get this photo to not be blurry on the blog :(

  
  
• Spring sunsets turning the bare-branched hill a firey hue as if all the trees have taken up red-light therapy.
• Believing your tarot deck has recently been possessed by a spirit***. 
• Deciding to make a bunch of different foods that require many different steps all in one afternoon such that every single dish in your house gets dirty, TWICE. Then reaping the reward of getting to ignore those dirty dishes for THREE WHOLE DAYS as you subsist on only yogurt and leftovers.  

*and you are up on your tippy-toes because your friend is much taller than you. 

**alternatively doing none of the things on your to-do list because something much sillier and much more fun has come up. 

***an incredibly kind, specific, and perceptive spirit.