SMALL THINGS, RICH LIFE

Winter comes slowly in North Carolina.  Leaves shrivel early from drought, before the temperatures drop.  September was a dry month, but we finally had late-October rain.  The first quarter of the school year has ended and it's apple cider season.  Last week the high was 55⁰ with a light drizzle.  I bought mums.  This week the rain stopped and we could use the fire-pit when the sun went down.  No more daylight savings.  Change of season is when we take stock, isn't it? Because I know I'll be staying in more soon, I've been thinking about the small things that make our lives richer. 
Here's one:  

"We would be together and have our books

and at night be warm in bed together 

with the windows open and the stars bright."  

Ernest Hemingway wrote this sentence in his inimitable style.  Mostly one-syllable words, simple sentence structure, nothing complicated.  Just "books," "night," "warm," "stars" and a word-picture emerges of two happy people in bed.  Content with each other.  Stars out the open window. Hemingway draws the scene as clearly as a painter would.  

So there are two things here that make our life richer.  One is being with our other half in bed as we reach for sleep wrapped in the warmth of our bodies.  The other is the reading itself, maybe Hemingway again or another of the American classics, or something newer.  At our house we start bedtimes with me propped up by pillows and my husband in the easy chair.  Reading is a perfect indoors winter pastime. I have a small stack of treasures waiting.  

Here's another small thing:  

"I DAYDREAM A LOT - THAT'S HOW I GET MY IDEAS.

IF I'M SITTING IN A 

CAFE, I'M NOT ON MY PHONE BECAUSE I WANT TO HEAR 

MY MIND.  I THINK THAT

THOSE PERIODS OF SMALL

SOLITUDE THAT WE ARE REALLY

LOSING ARE SO IMPORTANT."   

Poet singer-songwriter Patti Smith (b. 1946) said this.  She won the National Book Award for her first memoir, Just Kids (2010).  The small thing is the idea of just sitting so we can hear our mind.  We used to do this more often.  For a 70's punk rock singer, poet and  winner of the prestigious National Book Award to just sit with her own thoughts in a public place is inspirational to me.  If Patti Smith can do it so can I.  I can be myself without self-consciousness, sans phone.  

The third is my "Could-Do" list for November-December.  It's filled with small things.  Maybe some of these are on your list too:

Try one new Holiday recipe
Walk in the woods on the new golden pine straw
Gather fat pine cones for kindling, small ones to decorate
Share real (not edited) pictures
Spend at least one night away from home; make it romantic
Skip Amazon, shop local

Friendly Market, Morehead City, NC

Watch a movie-for-grownups
Go to a performance--the Messiah, the high school band concert, The Nutcracker . . .
Decorate with live greens, holly, pine, cedar, spruce and fir
And candy canes
And homemade paper snowflakes

Nothing hard on my could-do list.  I think as I do one I'll add one.  Just the things that nourish and uplift.  A list of treats.