Little Prompts for Happiness

Topic for today, courtesy of David: A little thing that makes you happy

I'll start with a list and see if one item pulls me toward story:

• laughter
• an unexpected compliment
• an a-ha moment from a student
• encountering a former student who seems happy to see me
• good news
• talking to my parents
• going through pictures at Wes's parents' home
• spending time with Wes
• critiquing ads with Wes
• digging my toes into the sand at a Gulf of Mexico beach
• time to write
• alone time (I need lots of it)
• sharing time in the ISI
• starting a project I had been procrastinating and finding out it isn't as terrible as I thought
• bowling with friends
• bike rallies with friends (as long as I can hide away occasionally)
• playing in the water with Wes
• reading novels and eating sunflower seeds
• naptime

I love pawing through the boxes of pictures Mimi (Wes's mom) keeps under the bed. It overflows with treasures. Father's Day, I pulled out a box while Wes, his younger brother, and his dad took shotguns to the shooting range. Darby (my sister-in-law) and I pulled out pictures, occasionally showing them to Mimi to ask who someone was. Laughter filled the room at pictures of the boys in their seventies clothes and wild hair.

I laughed as I read a note Wes wrote to his mom: "You're one in a million. I love you." It was a two-page note. The second page showed tons of stick figures, but one of those stick figures was in red, the one indicating his mom. I stashed the note away and brought it home along with a few pictures.

Playing in that box of pictures reminds me of an archeological dig, an exploration into Wes's early literacy. He wrote letters often. My favorite letter reads, "Mom, I'm sorry I made you mad. I'll be better. Love, Wes. PS: Here's a tooth." Sure enough, a tooth is taped to the page. I took that letter too.

He still writes letters. I woke up on our fifteenth wedding anniversary to find a banner taped across the dining room, telling me happy anniversary with the number of days we had been married. And I'm supposed to be the literate one?