Snow Days & Bliss

The snow is melting, and everywhere mud like a blessing holds the fox tracks and below my bedroom window at 3 am Lucy the vixen wakes me from deep sleep.  I don't mind that waking.  Lying there in the darkness knowing that I'm the only person on earth awakened by and present with that fox.  I don't mind that one bit.  I don't mind the snow and the sky flavored icicles or the naked trees that grace me with a sliver of sunrise which in all other seasons is obscured.

These are the bliss measures:

The hot soups and homemade bread. 

The one where I chased a band of pink clouds until I could find a place to park the car, stood there with my finger locked on the shutter button, my hands so cold they felt like they were on fire...and then suddenly the clouds drifted far enough above a power line for a clear shot and I clicked the button and the bliss of that moment.

The one where I learned to make the most exquisite cup of coffee that ever existed ( because coffee should taste as good as it smells, but rarely does).  And I did it!  Having asked lots of questions, sampled lots of roasts, and grinders, and extractions.  I did it.  And how when I sipped it I sighed, "HOLY MOTHER OF JAVA" with a milk foam mustache. 

The one where my lemon tree bloomed in my kitchen, and the jasmine, and the ranunculus.

The one where I bought noise cancelling headphones so the excruciatingly-loudness of the kids that flock to my home to play on snow days can finally be the one where I stop saying, "use your indoor voices"...and instead retreat to my kitchen and make roasted tomatoes and vegetarian bacon while dodging Nerf gun ammo in the bliss of muffled mayhem. 

These are the bliss measures:

The one knowing, the one smiling, the one silently nodding. 

The ghost ache, the heart clenching beauty, the one who is tender.

The hand reaching, unabashedly dancing, the rib-bruising laughter.

These are the bliss measures:

The folding and unfolding, the slant of the light and all the colors. 

The will,

the want,

and the corpuscular rush of embodiment.