Aw... Love...

I love the word love!

Well, perhaps that isn’t exactly the case.  I love everything about the word love, not just the word itself.  It is one of the most complex and yet simple words in the language.  Determining what it means in any given context is never quite easy; and yet, we know love when we feel it or see it or experience it.  We know what it feels like to simply love life in general or to find something that lifts our hearts or fills them to over flowing… if only for a moment. 

Now, I am not specifically talking about the love that we experience with another.  In fact, that is probably one of the more complicated and complex forms of love.  We can easily deceive ourselves into believing that another loves us or we love them, mistaking security and habit for love.  That said, the love that we experience with others is amazing in its passive or active or verb or noun forms.  That trust and honesty and intimacy and acceptance and enrichment and unconditionally… sigh… that love is an amazing feeling. 

But this is not the love of which I speak.  Well, at least not today and not in this post. 

Today I am writing about the little things; the everyday things; the little things we note throughout the day that are the tastiest morsels of love.  It could be the crunch of cereal, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the sleepy smile of a child, the lilting song of a bird, or that white puffy cloud that stands alone in the midst of a bright blue sky. 

Today I am writing about the Love List that is the brain child of Halfway Normal.  It is a celebration of the little things and why they lift our hearts and warm our spirits.

It is not just a list of the little things that we love or note that we love throughout the day, but also the reasons why we love them.  It is living the day and noting “I love this” and then, going that much further and asking (and answering) why?

It is a challenge to be more present in our days – and to discover the little things in life that we simply…love!

Here are five things that I love – Feel free to join in the fun here, on your own blog, or at Halfway Normal!

I love opening the door of my home in the evening – that first feeling that washes through me of relaxation.  I can put everything down and settle in, if only for a moment.  

I love the warmth of my daughter’s hand in mine – the curl of her fingers and the warmth of her skin.  It matters not what is happening in our lives as hand in hand, we work through them together. 

I love the first bite of a tree ripened peach.  The juice wetting my lips and chin and the fruit seems to truly melt in my mouth.  It is a taste of the sweetest part of summer. 

I love sliding into a freshly made bed and pulling up the patchwork quilt on a cool night – the night warm enough to have the windows open but cool enough to require the warmth of the hand sewn quilt.

I love the weight of the cat curled at my feet – my toes wiggling beneath the warmth.  His sleep assuring me that all is right in my world.