Finding joy in the little things

I love fall. Air as crisp and clean as a Washington grown apple picked from the orchard. The technicolor display of deciduous trees as they turn, signaling the advent of cozy sweater and boots weather, rudimentarily carved pumpkins on my porch and tiny little humans in disguise politely requesting candy.

I particularly enjoy that I can open the windows of my home office (yes, we are all still #workingfromhome) and listen to the sounds outside. Some of them are less than thrilling, such as my neighbor who has impeccable timing of mowing and blowing his lush lawn whenever I jump on a zoom conference.

Some of them, like today, made my heart sing. I have not heard, for six long months, the joyous sounds of children's laughter and play from the school yard that I can see from my upstairs windows. I heard the bells of the school ringing multiple times throughout the day today and I smiled every time. And I watched the parade of morning drop off and afternoon pick up vehicles lining the street with optimism and hope.

What is so different about these sounds right now? First of all, I did not find them particularly joyful 6 months ago. They were an interruption in my thoughts, they were cars in my way, they were minor nuisances in the overall scheme of things. As the saying goes, you don't know what you've got until it's gone. And truth be told, I had not even realized that I missed them until today.

The little things are what keep me moving forward. There are signs of life, love, progress everywhere if we just take a moment to look. But just like life is, these priceless signals that everything might just be OK are fragile and cannot be taken for granted.

We cannot ignore how we got to this place and we must also remember what brought us closer to normal. While we must now start to reimagine what the future looks like, I for one am grateful that parts of it will have things like loud cars picking up their kids from school, school bells ringing and outdoor announcements over the loudspeaker. I don't think I'll ever find those signs of life annoying again.

It would break my heart if we took steps backwards so my closing plea is to remind us all that wearing masks, washing our hands and watching our distance are caring acts of love for one another. Period. They are not insinuations of guilt. They are the other "little" things we can all do to preserve whatever sense of normalcy we can find and what can get us closer to how we used to be.