1. A soft-top Jeep with the top down. In this happy moment, I am wearing a tank top, so the sun is warm on my brown shoulders. The wind is keeping me cool and whipping the baby hairs around my face into a halo. There is a novel playing, something like Anne of Green Gables that makes me feel that small moments of joy, experienced one after the other, are the best kind of life.
2. The feeling of getting into a car that has been sitting in the heat all day. I love how it's almost too hot, and I wait and wait to see how long I can bear it before I turn on the air conditioning or roll down the window.
3. The day you get the next book of a series you adore in the mail. I've been looking on the porch every day waiting, rereading the other books obsessively, avoiding any spoilers from anyone who got it sooner. And then, there it is. And everything else is dropped. Laundry sits mildewing in the washer; plants wither in their pots. Everything important in the whole world is in between those two covers. Aaron who? Livy who?
4. The first sip of a canned diet coke with all it carbonated power.
5. The awful ache that comes with a powerful ballad. "Dust in the Wind," "Hallelujah," "Top of the World," and "Strawberry Wine.". I like to listen to them and wallow in how rich and deep and twisty they make me feel.
