Just Joy | any world is my world, every world is our world

Moments of Joy:

• Outside, in the back yard, after the sun has fallen, my menfolk and me. Wolfman has built a fire in the pit and is cooking up some chicken. He tells me that the combined smells of wood fire, tobacco, and cooking meat reminds him of his days (nights) volunteering at the Renaissance Festival. Wood smoke reminds me of being a girl, roasting hot dogs on sticks, on rock hunting trips with my parents. I share a couple drags of Wolfman's cigarette. Mads tries throwing sticks to Lunchbox.
• Wolfman and I are tucking Mads into bed, reviewing all the things he's thankful for, contemplating all the things he'll dream about, and are joined by both Lunchbox and Thorn--the whole family together and quiet and getting sleepy.
• Sitting in a class room at the science museum, my niece beside me still and studious, my wild son wiggling at my feet, the speaker/handler for this "meet the animals" session pulls a blanket off a tank on the floor to reveal a two foot baby alligator. Mads had been insisting the blanket-covered object was a present for him. But now I realize it was a present for me because my breath catches in my throat and a thrill of delight travels through my body and I can't believe how beautiful and perfect this creature is--this ornery, wiggly little Seth, exactly like my ornery, wiggly little Mads.
• I walk into the dark bedroom where Wolfman is taking a rare afternoon nap to put away laundry. I hear him mumble, "Woman. Come hither," and I lay next to him for just a couple stolen minutes, his arms around me, his body so warm.
• Perhaps because I got my driver's license late (relatively speaking), or maybe because there's an undeniable bit of transience in my soul, the experience of being alone in a car, driving with the radio turned on to any old station, any old song, really, is a profoundly blissful one. Today I drove to work under a blue sky listening to The Doors, watching a lone vulture gliding up the road ahead of me. Tonight I sang along to a Duran Duran song an old friend once put on a mix CD for me, and thought how beautiful the road is at night, lit by my headlights.
• Watching the Joe Wright Pride and Prejudice, alone, after my menfolk have gone to bed, I cry, happily, tears and snot all over my face, happily.

"Ordinary World," Duran Duran