In summer of 2024, I made a list of 100 things I love.
Here is another 50.
- That sharp bite in the back of your throat from horseradish.
- The first sip of a Diet Coke from McDonalds.
- Browsing a bookstore on a rainy afternoon.
- The smell of a freshly plowed field.
- Muscadine jelly on a buttered biscuit.
- Wandering the produce section at the Asian market.
- Listening to someone nerd out over one of their obsessions.
- Egg drop soup.
- Mentoring young people.
- The sound of a stream trickling over rocks.
- Dave Brubeck’s music
- See also Nina Simone
- A cup of hot chocolate, with vanilla and marshmallows, on a cold day.
- Soaking in a hot tub, alone.
- When people look at how I look and talk and where I’m from, and as a result they underestimate me.
- Watching old episodes of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood
- The joy my chickens have when I dump a new bag of raked leaves into their run.
- Stone ground mustard
- When someone reaches out and asks for a copy of something they remember I wrote years ago.
- A big salad as an entrée
- Eating in an empty diner at 3 in the morning.
- Antique roses
- The smell of Japanese honeysuckle in bloom
- Standing in the pickup line at the airport and seeing Renee’s car come around the corner.
- The way my cat Ella knows the sound of the cheese drawer in the fridge opening, and how she runs in the kitchen and starts screaming at me because she too loves cheese.
- The smell of our yard after the thunderstorm has stopped.
- The sound the house makes when you are the first one up, and you are sitting in a dim room, drinking your coffee.
- Thick bath towels
- The smell of cornbread cooking
- Hot buttered popcorn, salty, made on the stovetop.
- Folk yard art
- That feeling of fatigue in your muscles after working outside all day.
- Learning that something I did made a positive impact to someone.
- A long hot shower in a hotel room. I don’t know why it hits different there, but it does.
- Putting on clothes fresh out of the dryer.
- The way the temperature drops suddenly when it’s August and hotter than Satan’s armpit, but you just walked into the shade of a Live Oak tree.
- Drinking coffee from a thick porcelain mug.
- Being understood.
- Watching a school of dolphins play.
- Butterflies.
- Zinnias
- Black-eyed susans
- An oversized armchair big enough to curl up in.
- The color often called French Blue.
- When someone says that something I wrote gave them language for their feelings.
- The movie Mary Poppins.
- A room with throw rugs over a hardwood floor.
- Mint-infused iced tea.
- Watching Renee concentrate on something so hard she is oblivious I am there.
- Audiobook mystery novels
What do you love?