Sunday journalling prompt
On little pleasures
Hello,
On Friday night, I was catching a train back home, winding through the fenland of East Anglia as the sun set red. I was tired, but content. I love a long train journey. For a couple of hours, nobody can expect anything of me. (About six months ago, I removed the email app from my phone, and I commend it to you all.) It’s bliss.
I’d brought two books with me but I read both of them on the outward journey. So instead, I was indulging in an annual pleasure, watching the footage of Chelsea Flower Show on my tiny screen. I find Chelsea ridiculous, but also glorious. I don’t watch it for the celebrities and overt displays of wealth. I watch it for the stream of scruffy, obsessive gardeners who try to explain why they’ve devoted their lives to raising perfect specimens of one very specific type of plant, or who have tried to recreate the taste of cherryade in the form of a garden. Of course, no real explanation is possible. We are driven to do these things, and it’s life-giving to witness it.
I also watch Chelsea for presenter Monty Don, who I’m convinced should be the BBC’s first choice of broadcaster come the apocalypse. I could happily ride out the End Times watching Monty potter around his garden talking to his labradors and quietly urging me to dead-head my peonies this week.
All of which got me thinking about this week’s journalling prompt. It’s a nice, gentle one, designed to raise a little happiness.
Take your time on this one: nothing is urgent here. There’s absolutely no need for your list to be grand; in fact, go looking for the small. Find the most specific details you can.
Here’s my list:
Bringing big, lush bunches of herbs home from the farm shop and putting them on the windowsill in a glass of water.
Stopping at a red light, and finding that the person in the car next to me is singing their heart out.
Singing my own heart out in my car.
Raspberries and cream. Honey on toast. Marmite on toast. Tea.
Toddlers. Friendly cats. People who say ‘good morning’ as you pass them in the street.
Taking off your shoes and socks for an illicit padddle in the sea.
Lighting a candle on a dark afternoon.
Watching Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse for the 95,628th time with Bert, and finding that it’s still absolutely fucking perfect.
Joyful swearing.
Finding that seeds you’ve planted have poked up through the soil.
I could go on! If you’d like to (no pressure!) please share one of your pleasures in the comments - I can’t wait to read them.
Take care,
Katherine x
A couple of favorite things:
- walking in the cool, early mornings
- reading in the sun on my back deck
- petting a neighbor’s dog
1- Noticing the cardinal perched on the very edge of a long wispy branch waiting for me so to capture my hearts rhythm . Pausing with the sheer divinity it provides .
2-When the iron clad dense chime hanging from its steady limb deafly echos its fervent and inconspicuous rhythmic nod out of the blue in calm winds . It bellows my senses for deepening my breathe .
3- And in the nor’easter strong headwinds yet, she lies dormant . I pause equally. Beholden to Gods presence ; indomitable omnipresent nature i quiver at the awe of such mystery. I am reminded to let the unfinished conflicts go .
4-The shadows on the leaves at high noon from the direct summer sunlight pouring down a sepia of ombre light provides me eyes with the awe of Grace filling me up to trust All is well .
5- crows overhead shouting their reverent incessant craw ’ reminding me they too have a voice and to drop judgment.
6- timing is divine
7- letting curiosity live even when the deer chomps on your vegetation
8-hearing the wind stir my silence
9-leaning in
10- a freshly made bed from the start of that day ritualized for turning down and being held safely to begin again.