twelve things

my friend herald_tim was feeling a bit down, and asked people to post a comment listing twelve things that they passionately loved, or remembered, or gave them joy to see or do. it was a very good exercise, and i'm re-posting my list here. would anyone care to add a comment with their own list? the number of things on the list being, of course, unimportant.

salvation and grace

a large bowl of tomato soup with buttered toast to dip in it - all for myself on a snowy afternoon with a good book propped on the table in front of me and no one else in the house

coyote run's verison of Lord of the Dance

a long drive alone in the car with the last two or three tapes of an audio book and a new one to start when i'm done

seeing a red winged black bird for the first time on my first day of camp when i was ten

lots of very hot water in a very large tub - alone or with congenial company

actually seeing the lions in front of the New York Public Library

walking into the Archaelogical Museum in Athens and looking at the gold mask of Agamemnon for the first time

visiting the church of the Mount of the Beatitudes on the Sea of Gallilee and realizing that the people who had first worshiped there were actually celebrating their own experience and remembrance of Christ's miracles on that spot

listening to Handel's Messiah in concert at the Kennedy Center (or at l'eglise de Ste Louis in Paris)

the purring weight of a cat in my lap in the darkness as i spend the night sitting up with a cold in a recliner in the living room

deviled eggs, and potato salad, and fried chicken, and chocolate chip cookies in a picnic basket in the back of the car while looking for the perfect picnic spot

realizing that my initial draw at Scrabble can be arranged to spell "JINGLED" with the "J" on a double letter space and the whole word doubled, and a 50 point bonus

watching my newest grand-daughter be born last monday morning