A Field Guide to Small Joys

The first sip of tea while it is still too hot. The particular blue of the sky in late February, when winter is nearly done but has not quite let go.

The sound of a page turning in a room where someone else is also reading. The heft of a good pen. A dog asleep in a patch of sun.

Joy, I have come to believe, is not a destination. It is a practice of attention.

I keep a running list in the back of my notebook. I do not add to it every day. But on the days I do, the world is a little easier to inhabit.