Pesto & Hope, Actually

I don't like saying things like this, usually, because I don't like to compare days too much. However...

I just came off of what might have been the best (or at least the most needed) day I've had in a long, long time.

It started with one of those mornings where you stare at the wall for longer than necessary before getting out of bed, but then--when the sun came out after Algebra--everything became clear. Work was good, Mass Media class was good. KEXP played an alarmingly perfect set on my way home. I mean, every song was a dead ringer, beginning with my new sunshiney favorite "Nice Weather For Ducks" and concluding with "Summer Light" by The Cave Singers and a little Iron & Wine. Yes yes yes!

When I got home I had a wonderful phone conversation with a good friend I haven't seen in awhile, and it was uplifting and lovely to hear her voice, and I was so glad that she and I had a chance to share our hearts with one another like we used to when we were face to face.

Once home, I also realized that I had the house to myself for the evening, since my parents had plans. So I popped in "Love, Actually" (which I had borrowed from the library), fried up some Italian sausage, and boiled water for pasta. Mix pasta and sausage with pesto and mizithra cheese with a nice glass of white wine, with a dark chocolate-covered salted caramel for dessert.

Finish the evening off by knitting the night away, whistling to yourself, and the gentle clicking of knitting needles, and the sweet feeling of yarn between your fingers.

Yes.

Now, I know it's silly. But sometimes I think we need days like this, because days like this become memories (because they can't last forever, you know) and memories are what we recall on the rainy, lonely, confusing, stressful days. And those memories combined with rain, loneliness, confusion, and stress create something very strange, and that's Hope. Because on those sad and sorry days it's important to remember the way life dips and sways and ups and downs, and that it will sway upward again eventually, and not to worry.

So don't forget the next time you have pesto that carries you away, nor the time you found your favorite hobby, nor the best conversations you ever had, nor the way you feel in the arms of a favorite place.

Because it's those rememberings that keep you sane.

-The GLS