Finding fun in simple ways makes the happiest days. (Unknown author)
Are you happy? I hear you. Some of you are out there saying nobody can be happy all the time, and of course, you’re very right. But do you seek and find an underlying happiness that brings joy to life in many little ways? Like the fun of jumping into a pile of crunchy leaves with an abandon that doesn’t worry about getting leaf crumbles down your shirt or landing on a spider or… Well, you get the idea. Maybe even more fun is being the grandmother raking up the leaves for the happy fun of watching the grandkids enjoy toys that only nature can make. I didn’t jump in the leaves. I do realize that me landing on the ground in a pile of leaves is no longer one of life’s simple pleasures. It would be a jarring ouch. I don’t land as soft as the little grandkids. But I do get a lot of simple fun just walking through a layer of fallen leaves and seeing them stir around my feet, hearing their rustling crunch, and catching the scent of autumn. Simple pleasures.
The plaque above names over some other simple pleasures – all gifts of nature. Watching the sun set. The wind across a field of wheat or grass. The waves against the sand. The glitter of the stars when the city lights are far away. Sometimes we just need to get back to the basics of nature.
At times nature can slam us with disasters the way the hurricane did last week and bring hard times that have no joy in them. So if you’re suffering from the aftereffects of that, you might not be feeling too generous toward Mother Nature, but I hope there are still little blessings finding a way into your days.
The real joy of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real joy of living. ~Walter Rauschbusch
May life bring you joy this week. And go kick around a few leaves before you get out the rakes or the leaf blowers. We’ll have to do something with our leaves this weekend – probably mulch them with the mower. But my husband did leave them for the kids to play in at least one time because a kid and a leaf pile is definitely one of life’s simple pleasures.
I’m going to have a writer’s simple (or not so simple) pleasure this weekend and get to meet and talk with readers and other writers at the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort on Saturday. Over 150 authors and their books. A great place to do some Christmas shopping. If you’re in the area and decide to come, please stop by my table and say hello. And then I can say, in person, thanks for reading!