I love toe socks! No really, they’re amazing. When I put them on, my toes get to wiggle and worm inside them. I look down and see my toes dancing. I feel each one individually in my shoes. They come in so many colors and styles. It can be my own little secret or I can share it with people. I love toe socks. And carnations. They are so over looked as flowers. A single carnation in a vase, a simple vase says so much. Come in a variety of colors. Unpretentious, unassuming, low maintenance, and always there. The color red, I love the color red too. My kitchen has a red teapot, spoon ladle, toaster, blender, crock-pot, grill, utensil holder, potholders, dishtowels, and even tupperware. My closet has shirts, skirts, and shoes all in varying shades of red. Sheets, blankets, and towels too. I love fun words. Like onomatopoeia and alliteration. Or defenestrate and oxymoronic. Or saboteur said in a snooty faux french accent. I love lightning and rainbows. When the two come together the sum is greater than the individual parts. The crash of the lightning. Few things excited my sense quite like a thunderstorm. My ears are delighted by the loudness of the thunder. My eyes blinded by the brightness and the sudden flashes. My skin tickled as droplets of water dance on in an impromptu symphony. The air so clean and fresh renews my lungs. (And I’ve heard it smells great, but this I unfortunately have to just believe).
Why mention these things? They all make me smile, even just sitting here typing this, I smile at the mention of them all and grin at them collectively. In addition to this effect, another thread which binds them is simplicity. Surrounding myself with things that cause me to smile and recognizing the same ones are simple, I then translate this to other areas of my life. I strive to engulf myself with good-hearted people. People who when I think about them I smile and then grin when I get to see them. People who know how to make me laugh and giggle and be happy when I’m blue and when I’m not blue even more so. When I bake it brings me back to imagined simpler times. Life is so chaotic and fast paced and intense these days. It’s nice to slow down and look around and see simplicity, see things that make me smile too.
It’s nice to recognize simplicity and bring it in wherever I can because life just isn’t. Decisions are not simple, even those made on a daily basis. So I am astonished and pleased when one is easy. I walked into a furniture store today intending to buy a dinning table. I had an idea—cherry finish, pub height—with little practical structure in mind. I walked in and saw it, and knew I’d be walking out of there with it (rather, with the delivery paperwork because they will set it up for me and that’s way cool). I still walked throughout the entire store, even thought about going to another one, to do my due diligence, but I already knew. Recently I have been meeting a wide variety of people in an eclectic way (
In a very different context my dad once said, “if you have to force it, you’re doing it wrong.” I doubt he realizes how profound and long-lasting that statement has been for me. It’s in these moments of realization that I believe it is all really that simple and I just choose to find complexity in situations. These situations are made all the harder when something comes along and is so right, doesn’t feel forced in the least.
I can only hope that by surrounding myself with simplicity and things that make me smile, each day I will be presented with more things which fit this category. Finding a career in which the paycheck is just the reward and not the goal. Meeting that person with whom conversation flows like a waterfall and whose presence feels like a thundershower—invigorating all the senses.
I will now go and sit on my microfiber suede couch in my toe socks looking at a single carnation in a simple vase and continue writing to my heart’s content because these things make me happy.
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