Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Joy

I have been walking my butt off lately...I have no car, so I rely on those long and lovely legs of mine to keep in shape and carry me to my obligations. Since the arbitrary time change last month, I have been walking myself, walking Nora, walking with boyfriend and friends in the glow of the evenings. I like to be a creep and peer in lit windows against the gray orange background of dusk and make up stories of the people that I think live in these houses. It's become quite fun, like a bedtime fairy tale or daytime nightmare. Entertaining and imaginative... The house on 25th and Charles has well manicured bushes, hummel figurines in the front window, and has monogrammed shutters so they have lived their since the 1950s and are a retired couple; one a high school teacher, the other a clock maker. They house on 27th and Cheery has an unruly amount of dandelions and peeling paint so they like to watch 30 Rock taped on TiVo because they work two jobs.

Lately I have been rock climbing and getting back into hiking as the snow melts ever so slowly from the tops of the Cascade mountains. I have cameras, but they are all film, and those dozens of rolls need to be developed and then delicately and laboriously transferred to digital for our era. I work at the Photo Center Northwest in Seattle, so you'd think that would be easy to do. But we never set aside time to do the things that bring us the greatest joy.

That is what these evening walks have been for me. Joyful.

Years ago I had a boyfriend and a group of friends who made lists of things that made them happy, or things they were grateful for. Things that were small, things that smelled, things that were yellow or things that were irritating but hysterical. I have not made this list yet, but the lines are forming, and I continue to write letters to my friends, because THAT would be top ten things that make me happy in a list of probably hundreds.

Although I find Seattle fascinating, I miss my friends in Illinois.