I am in Indiana this week, watching honeybees drinking red clover flowers in my sister’s well-tended garden prairie. I am walking on the Monon Trail and wondering how to hold my sadness and not be washed away. I am thinking I don’t know how to do anything, but then I am singing with my niece and nothing else matters. She looks at my eyes and then my brother’s and realizes they are the same mix of brown and green and gold.
Is there anything more holy?
Mostly, I am remembering that being devoted to OOH LA LA, to joy, to pleasure, to passion, is about naming the pockets of goodness in my everyday, even, and maybe especially, on the days I don’t feel good. This devotion is how we keep going.
This week’s OOH LA LA! list includes: finding something I thought was lost, flowers in the house, rubber hot water bottle.
You should know that I rarely make a purchase without reading 10,000 reviews and specs of wanted item. So when I recently purchased a mint lip gloss that was said to soothe the driest of lips, and then promptly lost said lip gloss within 3 days, you can understand my devastation. Well, fear not, because lost things can be found! I don’t know if this experience can be defined as spiritual alchemy, but let me tell you, finding something I thought was lost, under a pile of clean laundry in my bedroom no less, feels like some sort of hope for all lost things.
My sister brought in a vase of garden flowers in the house, and with it, so much sunshine and delight. Imagine being two years old and waking from a nap to find a brilliant bouquet of red columbines and purple iris flowers and red clovers shining on your dining room table. When this happened to my niece, she said, in the sweetest, purest way, “thank you mama!” Can you imagine?! Is not that also how the universe feels when we see flowers shining too? “Thank you, mama!” I like to think so.
One of my most treasured items is my rubber hot water bottle. It is my favorite color blue and it gets to wear a sweater in the same color. I have this nightly ritual of filling the electric tea kettle while I get ready for bed so that I can fill my water bottle when I’m done. I like to hold the bottle on my stomach while I sleep or put it by my feet. It’s perfect mix of a heating pad and a weighted blanket and has become a trusted source of comfort, for which I am very grateful.
Thanks for reading!
If you want to join me in this devotion practice, tell me your OOH LA LA somethings!
Reply to this email with 1-3 sentences about your current obsessions, passions, and pleasures and why you love it or send me a poem or a photo!
XOXO,
LJ
Is there anything more holy?