MY FAVORITE THINGS
Randomly and without categorization:
1. British actor Bill Nighy
2. Trader Joe’s Belgian Chocolate pudding
3. Koh-I-Noor Chromatic Coloring Pencils
4. Reading The Sun magazine on a Saturday afternoon
5. Taking mental health days off from my job in mental health
6. Writer Thomas Moore (the contemporary one)
7. The dual whir of ceiling fans in the living room and dining room
8. August days that do not require air conditioning in the semi-desert where I live
9. Pruning the lantana
10. Solo living room dancing to Dire Strait’s “The Bug”
11. Dire Straits albums, especially Dire Straits, Love Over Gold, and Brothers in Arms
12. Mark Knopfler
13. Mark Knopfler solo albums, particularly Sailing to Philadelphia, Ragpicker’s Dream, Shangri-La, Kill to Get Crimson, and Get Lucky
14. Connecting with other MK enthusiasts
15. The movie Stranger Than Fiction
16. Cate Blanchett in just about any movie she’s made
17. Joseph Campbell, scholar of mythology and religion extraordinare, radiant being, and lover of life, the universe and everything (may his spirit continue to inhabit, inform, and inspire)
18. The poetry of Dorianne Laux, Connie Hales, C.G. Hanzlicek, Wendell Berry, William Stafford, Denise Duhamel, Teddy Roethke, Rita Dove, and on and on and on
19. Dark chocolate-covered raisins (“craisins” in our house)
20. Old friends
21. New friends
22. New-old friends
23. Mandalas
24. Freesia that comes straight from our front yard
25. Yanking out yard-length weeds from the flowerbeds
26. Hurling snails into the street
27. Walking to our local neighborhood coffeehouse/cafe on a Sunday morning
28. All of my friends, even those with whom I can no longer (for whatever reason) communicate
29. The intangible gifts my parents gave me
30. Haagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream
31. Practicing yoga
32. Art retreats
33. Intuitive painting
34. A really excellent filet mignon once a year
35. Getting packages in the mail (especially unexpected ones)
36. Reading through my teenage journals
37. Heath Ledger, RIP
38. Prismacolor artist pencils
39. Metallic tempera paint
40. My increasingly silvery hair
41. Fresh-off-the-tree peaches
42. Making giant fruit salads
43. Sitting on a beach-log, listening to the ocean
44. “Dictation” poems that seem to come from something/somewhere outside my self
45. Tree-shaded streets in old neighborhoods
46. Living in a house that’s almost a century old
47. My husband, in all of his vicissitudes, moods, creative states, semi-military moments, utter silliness, complete honesty, after-midnight runs on online guitar forums, total integrity, and absolute intolerance of bullshit
48. She is my cat and I am her human
49. My annual effort to master (against all odds) a layer cake for my husband’s birthday
50. My great mentor, teacher, and friend, Ron K. (may his spirit/soul meet up with Joseph Campbell’s if it hasn’t already)
51. Actually getting enough sleep once or twice a week
52. Inheriting (and/or learning) my mother’s tolerance of and compassion for humankind (okay, ALMOST all of it–leaving out the Idi Amins, Sadam Husseins, et al)
53. Getting to start over and try to do things right every day I wake up
54. Oddly, blogging
55. Seeing women grow old with acceptance and grace (a real kind of beauty)
56. Giving myself a weekend off from “having to do” anything
57. Cobalt blue
58. The brilliant pinpoint map of stars in mountain-night skies
59. The first teacher who gave me a blank composition book
60. Neil Young, in all ways, ALWAYS
61. Coloring books
62. Warm brownies with melty vanilla ice cream
63. Mountain meadows
64. My 52 and 3/4-yr-old heart that still seems to work (most of the time)
65. Daylight, as George Harrison said, that’s “good at arriving at the right time”
66. There’s a little bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out (thank you Lou Reed)
67. Surviving cancer
68. And living to tell
(more later . . . )
Like this:
This entry was posted on August 7, 2010 at 9:11 AM and is filed under aging, and everything, beauty, creativity, death, existential angst, life, mortality, poetry, Reflecting, the universe, transitions, Uncategorized, women. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: aging, beauty, death, favorite things, gratitude, health, life, lists, Mark Knopfler, reflections, women
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
