Bliss List

After reading this post and the post that inspired it, I’ve decided I want to start putting together my bliss list.    Sure, I’ll remember the biggies like wedding day and graduations and school acceptance letters, but what of those days (or moments) where bliss just falls on me in some unexpected measure? 

I’m thinking tonight of the great great happiness I felt in the days and weeks just after our little neighborhood park was created.   I was so excited at the whole amazing way things had come together.  A house torn down, a great collaborative effort , months of planning, and in the end, a piece of green carved out for our little urban neighborhood. 

On the day that it was dedicated, I commented to my mother that I hadn’t felt as excited or happy about anything since my wedding day.   For the first few weeks, I went over and sat on a bench almost every night and just looked and and loved that little park.  I envisioned it as our great “third place”, and it has been in many ways.  What I didn’t envision, couldn’t have even dreamed, was that I would have kids of my own playing there in that park in the years to come.  Sadly, the giant tree that anchored the whole park and that we worked so hard to plan around went down in a big storm a few years ago, so we are growing new trees to someday take its place. 

We’ve shared many a meal there, played croquet, walked our dogs, played and listened to music, thrown steak dinners there for our homeless friends, met new neighbors, and crossed paths with the old.   Lots of great days have been spent there, but none more golden than that first day. Bliss.

And as for the anti-bliss……..on Friday I made a whole batch of those s’mores on a stick for C to take back to school with him.  I left them out on wax paper to set up a bit and we all went to watch a video on the computer.  The gate was locked, so I’m not sure how it happened, but I heard a little sound…..like the sound of wax paper crumbling…..and then saw Willow run down the hall with six or eight sticks sticking out of her mouth in all kinds of angles.   The rest of the sticks (we hope) were in the kitchen floor, and nary a s’more or scrap of one in sight.