February Delights

Even a short month can hold delight in every day. That is, if you seek it out. Writing "Today's delights" at the top of a dedicated space on the journal page is a bit like picking up a fresh piece of stationery, getting a nice pen, and writing "Dear Person I Care About" at the top of the paper. (Sidebar: This is a thing people do still actually do, and sending or receiving a letter definitely counts as a delight.)

That is to say, once you've started and you've put it down in writing, that blank spot waits for you to fill it with something.

Early this month I finished reading the delightful book Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day, written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. The inspiration for the book came out of the earliest days of the COVID era (which we're still in, by the way, along with all the other overlapping eras that create a deep need for small delights in our days). She suggests writing our own lists of 52 things to look forward to, or things that bring us joy (or delight). That's one per week, and surely you can manage to find delight at least once a week.

I build a list of far more than 52 things every month, a few at a time. Some delights definitely come up again and again. I "reappreciate" coffee and good food and chocolate again and again, flowers and trees, sunshine and seasons, birds and mosses, hugs and belly laughs, my body reaching up in yoga, our home of four years and the way we've made it more ours, changing weather, shifting seasons, and the night sky. All right there, gifting me with fresh delight every time I pay attention.

February delights:

1. Good progress on a new jigsaw puzzle
2. Ordering a tin of Cougar Gold cheese as a gift for family who work for the federal government
3. The spinning windcatcher in our front yard rotating fast, twinkling in the sun
4. Snow on the ground when I got up
5. Mesmerizing flakes drifting down past evergreen boughs tipped with white
6. Satisfying ping of canning lids
7. Rich flavor of tayberry jam
8. Bright sweetness of raspberry jam
9. Winey depth of blackberry plum preserves
10. Sitting down after something like 7 or 8 hours of canning
11. Snow frosting everything
12. A storyteller's skill
13. Arriving at the headquarters exactly when two coworkers got there and all of us waving as we walked towards each other
14. Knitting in a meeting--tons of progress, beautiful colors
15. Two couples walking our neighborhood loop at different times, holding hands
16. One of these women saying to me as I left the housing wearing a big teal wrap, "I love that color!"
17. Walking fast in the cold on a downtown sidewalk feeling as if I were flying
18. One of the students bringing ginger cookies to improv class
19. Laughing
20. Waking to a snow-covered world
21. The sound of rain on the roof when I don't have to go out in it
22. Sweet and salty pickled cherries in yogurt with almonds
23. Blue sky peeking out
24. Lush flavors of mushroom soup I made
25. Birds twittering
26. Having all that counter space to do lots of cooking
27. How much light our living room holds on a cold, sunny day
28. Ducks paddling at the shore as waves rolled in
29. Mossy roof of a tiny sign kiosk with a jaunty fern growing out of it
30. Fresh zing of homemade raspberry and tayberry jams
31. Flurry of jays' cries high in the trees as I listened to a podcast interview with adrienne maree brown talking about connecting with the natural world
32. Curving up in Warrior 1
33. Buttery-good mushroom soup with oyster crackers
34. Hot bath
35. Walking with my sweetie
36. Moss-covered tree posed like a dancer
37. My sweetie describing how he'll fix the hummingbird feeder to make it nicer for them to land on with their tiny feet—such sweetness in that thought
38. The beautiful kitchen light fixture my sweetie made
39. Being inside warm and dry when cold rain is pouring down
40. My sweetie making a new bigger platform for Tiggs to perch on so he can watch kitchen action while not on the island or range hood!
41. Seeing Jupiter in the sky from my bedroom window, then Rigel and Sirius
42. Birds in the tree and on bushes doing their bird thing
43. Quiet sense of home stuff moving along while I work: washer and dryer humming and chugging
44. Printer putting out actual page, not weird tiny symbols and gobbledygook
45. Black-capped chickadee, perky on the suet cage
46. Finding the credit card, ID, and transit cards that were hiding in a backpack after a trip
47. Felting with wool for the first time, to fill a small couple of holes in a favorite blue wool jacket
48. A nearly full moon shining in the early morning darkness
49. Morning sun's rays shooting through tall pines
50. Riding my bike downhill
51. Full moon in the night sky
52. Venus shining over the neighborhood
53. Sun's warmth on a cold walk
54. Softness of Tiggs' fur
55. Holding my sweetie's hand on a walk
56. Spicy tingle of Bengal Spice tea
57. Seeing 3 other people on bikes as I rode to the office on a very cold morning
58. Driver who waited in the slip lane for me to bike past uphill, then waved and smiled when I waved at him
59. Softly falling snow
60. Energy of an in-person meeting
61. Little ferns growing out of the moss on the Dr. Seuss tree outside the living room window
62. Freshly baked bran muffins with melted butter
63. Speedy help from the data/GIS whiz on my work team
64. Finishing slides that are the right length
65. Sweet potato fries with garlic aioli
66. My body's curve as I reach to the sky in yoga
67. Warmth of Tiggs on my legs
68. Fresh homemade oatmeal cookies
69. Rain, gentle on the roof
70. Beautiful results of framing a big puzzle I started over a year ago and finally finished
71. Insistent train whistle in the distance
72. Hot fresh biscuits with butter and local honey
73. How great the kitchen counters look (new, after a big remodeling project)
74. Birds swooping joyously from fence to bush to feeder to tree and back around
75. Being outside in fresh air
76. Bright gold tall yolks of fresh local eggs
77. Satisfaction of pruned raspberry and tayberry bushes
78. Not needing my coat on a walk
79. Mossy sculptures in the woods composed of tree limbs and stumps and trunks
80. Feeling good about finishing a set of slides I need to present to a legislative committee
81. Belly laughs
82. Bright yellow leaf on the path in the nearby forested park
83. "Spread Kindness" on the display sign on the #21 bus
84. Creamy mushroom soup with lots of paprika, eaten fresh after making with oyster crackers
85. Frogs' chorus in the night
86. Crocuses poking up out of a mossy planting strip
87. The deep cushion of moss, not grass, in that planting strip
88. Night chorus of frogs bellowing for love
89. Tiggs playing with an old toy I got out that he hasn't seen in a while, pouncing again and again
90. Smell of wood smoke on a walk
91. Walking with my sweetie
92. Sitting in a coffee shop/bakery with the hum of people
93. Assyrian flavors in lemon labneh, roasted cauliflower steak, zoug
94. Tiny purple flower blooming by the sidewalk
95. Sleeping in, warm and cozy
96. Trying a new recipe that's a keeper
97. Sea salt dark chocolate truffle
98. Coziness
99. Rain on the roof, a steady drumming
100. Flowers blooming on the capitol campus
101. Unexpected scent of lily of the valley on a downtown street
102. Homemade tomato jam and Cougar Gold on crackers
103. Birds twittering on the suet cage
104. Tiggs making that chittering sound from his tower seat by the window where he can see those birds
105. Bird going for a ride on the wind spinner in the yard
106. Hearing a barred owl hooting in the rhododendron park midday
107. The way the blue paint I picked for the bedroom picks up colors in a painting and a framed jigsaw puzzle hanging on the wall
108. Perfect timing to roll through stop signs on uphill stops riding home in the dark (which, by the way, is legal in Washington thanks to Safety Stop legislation enacted in 2020)
109. Biking at night
110. Spring! Blue sky and sun! 60 degrees!
111. Trees budding
112. Flowers blooming
113. Calls of a jay
114. Tiggs fully stretched out in the sunshine (on my puzzle table)
115. Tiggs doing his "roll and scroll" on the living room rug, tipping his head back to look at us, beaming happiness and chirping/talking
116. Glorious warmth of the sun!
117. Flowers blooming in so many places
118. The way the rust orange of a thrift store jacket went perfectly with a top, scarf and hat I already owned
119. Taking a selfie with my mushroom "pinecone" stump friend just because
120. Beautiful glassy water in the bay, ducks floating here and there
121. Stars and planets in the night sky, and being able to see those overhead in our neighborhood

Putting this list together tells me even more about the themes and delightful resonance than I originally thought of when I started the post. Listing them chronologically lets me recognize the way I tune into seasonal shifts. 

And so many! I don't aim for a specific number per day since I can't force delight. It just comes, every single day, as long as I expect it.

Reading this list makes me feel delight-full. What's on your list?

Related Reading

• January Delights
• Riding Always Makes Me Happy. Yes, Always.
• Go Ahead. Make My Day.
• A Solstice Post: Gifts I Give Myself by Riding in the Winter
• 30 Days of Biking, Day 30: Happy!
• Walking in February: Of Woods and Water
• A Year of Poems: February
• Reruns: February Posts Worth Revisiting

Earth Day Poems for Every Day

Every day really is Earth Day. What else could it be? Knowing that, how will you choose to live?

As with all my collections of poetry I've chosen a few lines to excerpt, not necessarily the first lines in the poem. Follow the links to read the full work.

"Earth Day" by Jane Yolen

As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me. 

"Make the Earth Your Companion" by J. Patrick Lewis

Make the Earth your companion.
Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do.

"Gravity" by Donna Hilbert

This is why we call the earth Mother,
why all rising is a miracle.

"Treat Each Bear" by Gary Lawless

Treat each bear as the last bear.
Each wolf the last, each caribou.
Each track the last track.

"School Prayer" by Diane Ackerman

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,

"For All" by Gary Snyder

I pledge allegiance to the soil
            of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
             one ecosystem
             in diversity
             under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

"Love in a Time of Climate Change" by Craig Santos Perez

I love you as one loves the most vulnerable
species: urgently, between the habitat and its loss.

"Beginners" by Denise Levertov

-- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

"Untitled [Earth teach me stillness]" by Nancy Wood

Earth teach me caring
    as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
    as the tree which stands all alone.

"When the Animals" by Gary Lawless

When the plants speak to us

     in their delicate, beautiful language,

     will we be able to answer them?

"2007, VI [It is hard to have hope]" by Wendell Berry

Because we have not made our lives to fit
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge
of what it is that no other place is, and by
your caring for it as you care for no other place, this
place that you belong to though it is not yours,
for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

"Map" by Linda Hogan

This is the map of the forsaken world.
This is the world without end
where forests have been cut away from their trees.
These are the lines wolf could not pass over.

"Anthropocene: A Dictionary" by Jake Skeets

diyóół        : wind (

                         wind (more of it) more wind as in (to come up)
                         plastic bags driftwood the fence line 

"Makers" by Pamela Alexander 

We dried rivers or dammed them, made
music, treaties, money, promises.
Made more and more of our kind,
which made the cars and the wars
necessary, the droughts and hurricanes.

"Nimbawaadaan Akiing / I Dream a World" by Margaret Noodin

Nimbawaadaan akiing

I dream a world

atemagag biinaagami

of clean water

gete-mitigoog

ancient trees

gaye gwekaanimad

and changing winds.

"Dead Stars" by Ada Limón

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No.

     No, to the rising tides.

Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land?

What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain

for the safety of others, for earth,

                 if we declared a clean night, if we stopped being terrified,

"Mending Mittens" by Larry Schug

Blessed be those who have laced together

the splits at the seams of this world,

repaired its threads of twisted waters.

Blessed be those who stitch together

the animals and the land,

repair the rends in the fabric

of wolf and forest,

of whale and ocean,

of condor and sky.

Blessed be those who are forever fixing

the tear between people and the rest of life

"Testimony" by Rebecca Baggett

I want to say, like Neruda,

that I am waiting for

"a great and common tenderness,"

that I still believe

we are capable of attention,

that anyone who notices the world

must want to save it.

Walking in July: Of Findings and Feathers

 When I walk, I look not only forward but also up, out, around, and down. "Down" often yields interesting finds along the way. Or "interesting", to add an air-quotes spin to some of the stuff down there.

In jewelry-making (which I don't practice), findings are those little bits needed for construction, like the hooks and clasps your fingers may struggle with at the back of your neck. I do in fact find findings sometimes. I find lots of things on solo walks and on the walks with my sweetheart around the neighborhood, to local parks, and downtown on the weekend. 

A partial list of things found on July walks, in broad categories that suggest themselves:

• Feathers. Big ones, small ones, black from crows, dark grey or white from seagulls, one small fluffy blue one likely from a scrub jay or Stellar's jay. Some come home with me to be added to the stash of toys for Mr. Stripey Pants.
• Hardware. A tiny rubber stopper that's just what Sweetie needed for a project on the workbench. Washers. Nuts. Bolts. Nails (which we pick up if they're where people might step on them or bicyclists ride over them). Other...thingies.
• Straps: Bungee cords (bungie?), which are a keeper; velcro straps (sometimes a keeper); bits of broken shoelace.
• Hair doo-dads: One headband hung on the limb of a tree in our neighborhood for a while, waiting for a little someone to come back and retrieve their beloved bright pink headband with the purple flower. It finally disappeared, I hope because it found its way home. We see scrunchies, bobby pins, stretchy bands.
• Coins: This starts as soon as we head out the door. One of the neighborhood children takes great joy in flinging a handful of pennies into the street every now and then. We leave those in place so he (or his grandpa) can pick them up and restock the supply. Anywhere else those are fair game to come home with us. Always exciting if it's shiny metal instead of copper, of course.
• Leaves and flowers and berries, oh my: Of course, of course. In the heat of July we see some yellowed leaves we hope are a sign of heat exhaustion on the part of the tree, not impending autumn since for heaven's sake it's only July. As blooming seasons come and go the petals and blossoms shift. Now we're done with lilacs, rhododendrons, and many of the tree blossoms; it's hydrangeas and assorted later bloomers. Blackberries are beginning to ripen, and we watch for spots that let us grab a berry or two along the way. These are a non-native and invasive species in our part of the world but they do make delicious jam. I made a batch of seedless blackberry jam recently from last year's frozen berries and I'll be doing another batch this year.
• Clothing: We've seen jackets hanging on fences, lost socks, shoes, gloves (oh, can I relate to that!), hats. We may put something on a nearby post to make it more visible in case the owner comes back, or if it looks as if it's been there a long time it enters the next category, garbage.
• Garbage, garbage, garbage. On our first Saturday walk this month, July 1, heading toward downtown we spotted a mostly empty plastic pop bottle out in the middle of East Bay Road, with too much oncoming traffic to venture out and grab it. Sweetie picked up various other bits and bobs to be thrown away when we passed a trash can: wrappers, another bottle, a can. On the way back home, that same bottle had been blown to the curb by the wind of passing cars; we nabbed it and carried it home to throw it away. On every walk we pick garbage up and pack it with us until we reach a garbage can. We have many thoughts about the carelessness of our fellow humans at times like this, and at times I think of Extraordinary Attorney Woo picking up trash on her walk with Min-Woo in Episode 12.

Years and years ago I adopted a mile of Highway 41 in Idaho just outside of Rathdrum. It led to the lake where my parents had a cabin and I had noticed garbage that needed to be cleaned up. That brought its own insights into human behavior, some of them so, so sad. I remember one stretch where I found many empty Potter's Vodka bottles at a particular curve, where they had clearly accumulated over time. I wondered about the driver who might be flinging those out a window to hide (or so they thought) their drinking from someone waiting at home.

Despite the sadness and strangeness, picking up that stretch felt like an Easter egg hunt (not that any of the items should be put into one's mouth). It felt so satisfying to look at the full bags and know that I had made that little piece of the world a bit better. 

Later, while living in Spokane, for years I participated in the annual Spokane River Clean-up organized by Friends of the Falls. I still have one of the backpacks we got with the "ouch pouch" (in case we got hurt pulling broken glass out of bushes) and the other supplies and goodies handed out to volunteers. Looking at it takes me back to the camaraderie of the hundreds of people who came together to haul tons and tons of garbage out of the river gorge.

All these years later on our walks, it still feels good to make things cleaner and better simply by picking something up.

Related Reading

Thinking About Garbage (and How to Make Less of It) 

Adam Ruins Everything - The Corporate Conspiracy to Blame You for Their Trash

Litterati app

Clean Up Your Neighborhood: Doing Good Together

Plogging: The New Swedish Trend of Running while Picking Up Trash

Walking in March: Of Woods and Work

My February walk in the rain forest at Lake Quinault involved soaring trees, mosses, quiet trails, and the sound of water. And guess what—I have all those within a 15-minute walk from my front door. 

Well, technically not the rain forest label. But we're fortunate to have found a house very near Squaxin Park, which offers up over 300 acres of woods, a mile of shoreline, and trails that wind through and connect to offer any number of ways to wander.

Back up over two years ago to when we still lived in Seattle, in a corner of the Top Hat neighborhood with no sidewalks, no big natural park within an easy walking distance. 

When the pandemic struck the state of Washington before any other state, our governor and the state agency I work for responded swiftly. In my journal I noted March 10, 2020, as the first day of 100% working from home. 

In those early days as we pivoted to the online work world we needed to figure out ways to stay connected and stay up to date on the unfolding emergency. Our leadership instituted a weekly call for senior managers. Each call ended with encouragement to make sure we were taking care of ourselves and our coworkers while we continued to serve the people of Washington under enormous strains and shifts. The call often ended with the words, "Be kind. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others."

One of the ways I found to do this was to make that particular meeting a walking meeting. Now, usually a walking meeting involves walking and talking with other people. I had those other people with me via the headset I wore as I walked laps around the outside of our house, carrying my phone so it could count my steps.

This got me moving if I'd been sitting or standing too long in one place, staring at the screen and typing typing typing. It also made me a much better meeting participant. Why? Because while I was walking and listening I was only walking and listening. I wasn't reading and answering email with half an ear attuned to the meeting. I wasn't trying to multitask, which isn't even a real capability of the human brain. I was being kind to myself.

[Side note on my various forms of privilege that show up in this story, including my ability to buy these homes: I fully recognized then and know that my ability to stay home, warm, fed, and powered relied on the work of thousands of people who kept going into workplaces, being exposed to a virus we didn't understand for which we had no vaccine, and dying at higher rates than those of in these white-collar desk jobs. It still does, they still are, they still do, and I don't forget that.]

Just over three years later teleworking is still my daily reality. Our agency goal is to maintain a high percentage of teleworking so those of us whose jobs lend themselves to that format continue to reduce those vehicle miles traveled by not traveling them at all. I could go into the office occasionally if I wanted to, but the building is mostly empty; it doesn't have the "juice" of those chance hallway conversations that enrich our work by giving us a new idea or an insight into a different way of thinking about what we do.

Walking meetings are also still part of my work life. I select a meeting that doesn't require me to view a lot of slides on screen, although I can actually look at those on my phone if I need to. I put on that headset and head out the door. Within a few blocks I'm in the woods, listening with focused attention to the meeting content and resting my screen-worn eyes with the trees overhead, the water below the little footbridge, the offerings people leave at the Telephone of the Winds in memory of loved ones who have died.

Another way I make walking part of my work life while being kind to myself: Occasionally on a lunch break I put on a podcast and head for those woods. Listening to smart people interviewing interesting guests on a variety of topics yields some of those insights, those new ways of approaching a topic or a scenario that I might have gained from a hallway conversation. I listen to some that are quite obviously "about" work, in that they focus on transportation. Others that aren't transportation-focused stimulate my brain with new knowledge. I'm stepping away from that direct task focus and giving myself permission to let an idea or a question simmer a while before coming back to pin it down. 

This time of stepping away is a critical part of brain work. Einstein is famously said to have come up with the Theory of Relativity while riding his bicycle.* The movement of my body through space and my brain coming along for the ride may not yield world-changing science, but it makes me feel better, think better, live better. I'm balanced between woods and work.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.  

— Albert Einstein

Related listening

Don't tell the hosts, but I don't listen to every episode of every podcast I'm subscribed to. This list is a sampling; over the years I've subscribed to others and the list is ever-evolving. What am I missing that you think is a must-listen, and why do you think that? What makes it a good companion for a walk?

• 99% Invisible 
• Code Switch
• On Being
• This Land
• Arrested Mobility
• TED Radio Hour
• Talking Headways
• Short Wave
• Hidden Brain
• The Midlife Feast
• 360 Degree City
• The War on Cars
• Invisibilia
• Autonocast
• The Mobility Podcast
• Hurry Slowly
• Hello Coffee My Old Friend
• Transportation Radio
• Redesigning Cities
• Wanderful: Inspiration on the Go
• Contra* from Critical Design Lab (stopped producing episodes in 2020 though)

*Snopes says there's no attribution for this Einstein statement about coming up with the Theory of Relativity while riding his bicycle. But the American Museum of Natural History included it in their Einstein exhibit so I'm going with them. Their description of how the insight ties to riding a bike makes sense to me: "No matter how fast Einstein rides his bike, the light coming from his headlight always moves at the same speed." Snopes says the statement about how life is like riding a bicycle is a paraphrase of something he wrote in a letter to his son Eduard dated Feb. 5, 1940.