Taking a Step Back

Have you ever had one of those days when for some reason you seem to view the world from a different perspective? When you look at the people around you, wondering what makes them do the things they do, what small things make them happy, what happens in their daily lives that keeps them content?

On occasion this happens to me. Perhaps it is the type of people I work with, my clients, perhaps it is the way I view my world in general, I do seem to analyze quite a bit. Perhaps it is an 82yr. old in my life that has decided that she has lived to long, and it is time to die, but she is too healthy to die yet, so she sits around observing her small world and bitching about it and everyone in it.

What small little moments make us content with life on most days?

Sometimes it can be the silliest little things.

This weekend I had the rare opportunity to pick up the television remote control and watch an uninterrupted few minutes of television...I chose the documentary channel, yeah yeah I am weird....anyway.... learning about the anarchy movement in the United States, or revisting how being blacklisted in the 1950's affected peoples lives.....was of great interest to me...a few moments of contentment, enjoying that time, a time when I got to choose what I watched.....my television viewing habits are most often effected by my hearing something interesting blareing away, that someone else has chosen to watch, then I may go in the room, sit down for a few moments to watch and listen, but it is not me who did the choosing, it is one of the other two who live here or the #1 son who visits to eat/watch tv/scrounge for loose change/or help us out when we need a few extra hands.

Other moments ~~ an acquaintance stopping by to ask a favor, and along with that bringing me some of the yummiest homebaked brownies as a thank you in advance ~~ going to the drive-in to watch the second Pirates of the Carribean ~~ feeling the burn in my arms from helping to put up over 200 bales of hay...the whole family working together to accomplish a task ~~ finally getting the yard mowed...well most of it anyway, the mower broke down as I was doing some final roadside trimming ~~ rereading portions of Hitchhikers Guide ~~ finding two young frogs living in my very small garden pond ~~ enjoying some shrimp lo-mein ~~ finding the first green beans ready in the garden ~~ watching the moon change over the past few evenings ~~ even getting an answer or two typed first and correct during an online trivia game ~~ making my children laugh because I screamed as I was cleaning out the pond and my hand closed over a dead koi...yucky feeling... but their laughter was worth it ~~ as I finished weeding the flower beds, remembering how my 4-yr.old great-nephew helped me a few days ago, how he learned immediately what was a weed and what wasn't, the pleasure he felt from helping me, the pleasure he got from me catching him a toad....over and over and over and over again...he wanted to hold them so badly, but each time it made it's little chirrup sound he would quickly drop it back in the pond, only to want it again ~~

Such small little things, things that don't matter at all in the great scheme of things, but those little things are life, remembering to enjoy them, instead of worrying about tomorrow, or next year. Breathing life in, breathing in and enjoying those very small breaths of life, they may not create great happiness, but contentment, yes they do engender such a nice feeling of contentment.