Happy/Miserable

It's a battle between being miserable about the coup going on in my birth country, genocide and cruelty in general and making my life worth living. Each morning, something that is anti-anything good about the U.S. is undone, another incompetent, immoral or just plain crazy person seems to gain more power and those who might have a chance to stop it don't do what they could.

At the same time, I'm trying to be happy in my personal life by appreciating people and things around me. 

I never pass this small cabinet I found in a second hand store. The colors and design make me smile. I wonder who painted it.

Flowers. At the moment mimosa sweetens the air. The yellow is a bit of sunlight in my living room. It makes walking thru a room a pleasure instead of mundane.

A piece of artwork from a local artist. I'm slowly naming the tiny birds: Tweetie, Chirp, Sally... It is the first thing I see when I wake even before I hear the news and the dangers the world is facing.

I decorate my laptop because black is boring. Each time I open it, I notice the angels' trumpets and wings. Does it make me write better? I don't know, but I feel happy as I begin working.

A kiss or cuddle from my dog or watching him do zoomies. 

There are so many other things each day if only I take time to notice, feel them, appreciate them.

• Watching a child laugh. 
• There was a cat that sat outside a neighbor's shop every morning and spent the day inside. They moved and the cat went with them, now permanently homed with them in a new store down the street.
• The wind caressing my cheek, sometimes nibbling and every now and then biting.
• Colors.
• The huge trees with their crevassed bark when we walk Sherlock near our home in Geneva. We had fun standing in a hole of one and pretending we were dwarfs.
• A cinnamon bun. 
• Watching a Netflix holding my husband's hand.

A complete list would be impossible. I want to observe the little things during the day and revel in them. It could be a sight, smell, taste, feel...things that say this is what matters. To savor them is to be truly alive.Not seeing them reduces the quality of my life, never mind eliminates a detail to include in my writing. Not seeing them, feeling them, tasting them, smelling them allows the evil of war, coups, cruelty to other creatures to win. Finding the good does not negate the bad, nor does it mean not to fight it, but it does give me the strength to fight back.