I work really hard to cultivate and enjoy fleeting pleasures. I'm fairly vigilant about buying produce when it's in season. I just don't eat apples in the summer. Stuff myself with peas in the springtime, eat citrus in the winter. Sure, I bend the rules from time to time, but asparagus is for spring, butternut squash for winter. When they're in season, I practically poison myself with blueberries.
Oh. sure, some of it comes from wanting to support local, some of it from knowing that produce tends to taste better when it's in season and hasn't had to get a plan and go through customs to get to me.
But that all may well be rationalization.
Truth is, I get a lot of joy from temporary pleasures. They demand that you throw yourself all in, submerge yourself -- because they're by nature ephemeral. It's a constant reminder to stop and smell the roses. Or, in this case, the viburnum. I have two, and they're both blooming now, which means my yard smells heavenly. They'll only last two weeks at best. (I can't go on vacation then, that's when the viburnum bloom!)
A few weeks ago, it was the crocus, then the forsythia, soon will be the lemony smell and complicated blooms of the iris. Right now, the pink of the burgeoning grape leaves entertwined with the new pale green of the clematis vines is stunning.
I'm stealing a precious few moments before the rain starts, sitting out on the deck, unseasonably warm, thus leading up to an imminent thunderstorm -- but oh, what a joy to be out here enjoying all of this beauty, knowing that tomorrow will be cold and rainy.
Sure, part of me wants it to be like this all of the time. I dread the upcoming DC metro area humidity and heat. But it forces me to get out today, right now, and revel in the moment. To stop, take time, and enjoy.
If I lived someplace where it was pleasant all of the time, if I had enough money and devil-may-care to have what I wanted imported to me year round...I don't know that I'd have the discipline to force myself to take time to enjoy the fleeting things. I fear I would become complacent - oh, it's San Diego, of course it's lovely, it's almost always lovely! And ten years later I would have put off so much because...oh, tomorrow will be nice too.
I'm a curmudgeon, a misanthrope, I'm a burster of balloons, a rainer on parades, the person who always thinks of what could go wrong, a planner for the worse eventuality.
And yet - I'm a very happy person. I can ignore a fuckton of evidence that tells me why I should be unhappy: my job, my bank account, my moneypit of a house, my health. Bloody hell, it's a wonder I can get out of bed in the morning.
Except...there are so many small joys...so many crocuses, so many brand new pea plants poking up out of the ground, the fizzy, funky taste of the cider you hunted down, the hours you spend with a partner/lover that are never as much as you want, the approaching tang and damp and lightning flash of that storm that's going to send you inside, but Not. Just. Yet.
If you weighed it on the scale that we seem to measure things on -- the scale of commerce --it wouldn't amount to much. But it can be the world, my friend, the world. Train yourself to embrace it. It could save you.
Oh. sure, some of it comes from wanting to support local, some of it from knowing that produce tends to taste better when it's in season and hasn't had to get a plan and go through customs to get to me.
But that all may well be rationalization.
Truth is, I get a lot of joy from temporary pleasures. They demand that you throw yourself all in, submerge yourself -- because they're by nature ephemeral. It's a constant reminder to stop and smell the roses. Or, in this case, the viburnum. I have two, and they're both blooming now, which means my yard smells heavenly. They'll only last two weeks at best. (I can't go on vacation then, that's when the viburnum bloom!)
A few weeks ago, it was the crocus, then the forsythia, soon will be the lemony smell and complicated blooms of the iris. Right now, the pink of the burgeoning grape leaves entertwined with the new pale green of the clematis vines is stunning.
I'm stealing a precious few moments before the rain starts, sitting out on the deck, unseasonably warm, thus leading up to an imminent thunderstorm -- but oh, what a joy to be out here enjoying all of this beauty, knowing that tomorrow will be cold and rainy.
Sure, part of me wants it to be like this all of the time. I dread the upcoming DC metro area humidity and heat. But it forces me to get out today, right now, and revel in the moment. To stop, take time, and enjoy.
If I lived someplace where it was pleasant all of the time, if I had enough money and devil-may-care to have what I wanted imported to me year round...I don't know that I'd have the discipline to force myself to take time to enjoy the fleeting things. I fear I would become complacent - oh, it's San Diego, of course it's lovely, it's almost always lovely! And ten years later I would have put off so much because...oh, tomorrow will be nice too.
I'm a curmudgeon, a misanthrope, I'm a burster of balloons, a rainer on parades, the person who always thinks of what could go wrong, a planner for the worse eventuality.
And yet - I'm a very happy person. I can ignore a fuckton of evidence that tells me why I should be unhappy: my job, my bank account, my moneypit of a house, my health. Bloody hell, it's a wonder I can get out of bed in the morning.
Except...there are so many small joys...so many crocuses, so many brand new pea plants poking up out of the ground, the fizzy, funky taste of the cider you hunted down, the hours you spend with a partner/lover that are never as much as you want, the approaching tang and damp and lightning flash of that storm that's going to send you inside, but Not. Just. Yet.
If you weighed it on the scale that we seem to measure things on -- the scale of commerce --it wouldn't amount to much. But it can be the world, my friend, the world. Train yourself to embrace it. It could save you.