Sunday, November 7, 2010

Good days

Yesterday was simply a good day. Nothing remarkable happened. I had turned 25 two days before. I woke up to sunshine. I wore a vintage Pendleton wool shirt. I ate a bagel for lunch, and after lunch I took a nap. I listened to a recording of Maurice Sendak's 1993 interview on NPR's Fresh Air. I read some wonderful children's books.

In the evening, I made soup with potatoes and kale from the garden. I drank a blueberry beer, which made me slightly tipsy, and I painted my fingernails coral pink. I stayed up late, but not too late. I slept well.

Nothing remarkable happened, but I was happy, and in my happiness I remembered this poem:

The Life of a Day
(Tom Hennen)

Like most people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don't want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn't one I've been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night's meandering skunk.

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