Play the hits

Lately, it feels that ordinary pleasures, basic indulgences, are trickling-tickling especially deep down inside my brain stem. Bluefin tuna, a local lager, a few extra hours for a few more pages of my water-stained novel. Chatter and discourse surround the ‘cottage,’ a desperate modern relay towards simplicity, ordinary fervor, beauty in the mundane, stone-ground betterness. As with raw fish served cold over rice, a purple evening haze cast deep within the Arizona sky, discipline in the routine of recognizing small wins and either earthly or heavenly favors elicits euphoria, saying as each piece is gripped tight by the prongs of two chopsticks, as my eyes witness another violet revolution of my life, ‘the personal is universal.’

Finding joy in small moments feels both pragmatic, AND, romantic. Like a combination of consistent 401k contributions, metered with an elope along the Amalfi Coast, taking stock of the day’s glad tidings is a privilege that some see easy and some may not, a gift to be struck and believe, in the final nook of the last ventricle, that the next page is better than the last, as will be the one coming, the next slice of sashimi perfectly coated in soy sauce above a glimmering bed of white rice. Thinking, what a lovely and practical solution to my ails, to expand the small wonders of a dish washed well into a philosophical encapsulation, the plate a boulder, my meal a mountain, I must imagine Sisyphus happy as I commit to the task I’ll commit to my death. There will always be another meal, grit and grime once deemed unapproachable, a bottle of soap that does not flinch upon the squeeze.

Practical, then, to not dream too big? That what is good and loving is what I choose to value? There is a pie in the sky left undisturbed, saved for a valiant bunch, and I’ve just heard the oven call for me, my mother’s banana bread intoxicates the room.