Favorite Things

       Certain objects have imaginative juice, just as certain places and people do. Who's to say what quirks in my psyche fuel my love for Mini Coopers, for example? Is it a story embedded in my imagination that features a cute, retro, puppy-like car? Is it reminiscent of some old car I saw in a movie once upon a time attached to a story I don't remember? Is it a metaphor for freedom and individuality?  Does a car have qualities I'd like to embody in myself, even though I don't know what they are?

      Why we love what (and whom) we love is often outside the realm of reason.  All we know for sure is that they make us feel happy whenever we encounter them in the geography of our imaginations.

       The pleasure of the presence of our loved things may be as ephemeral as the flare of a birthday candle, here, then gone.  But once we claim them as ours, we're always alert to their showing up, and we look for them like people in love look for their beloveds in a crowd. Our faces light up, we feel happy.

       Or maybe we forget about them, then they appear out of nowhere, and we have to stop what we are doing to say, "Oh, there you are! I remember you!  Come here."

       Like the smell of cinnamon, the fragrance of sandalwood.

       Thomas Moore writes, "The secular and the spiritual are two sides of the same coin.  There is no separation between them.  If you want to be spiritual, you have to live fully in this world--and vice versa."

      Reading this line got me thinking about "ordinary things" that bring unreasonable pleasure.

       I love colanders, bowls and handcrafted wooden spoons.
       Patchwork quilts and mosaics.
       Pictures of small houses, even dilapidated ones about to crumble into the ground.
       Taking the time to brew aromatic tea, the way the leaves expand when I pour hot water into the glass pitcher.
       The fragrances of lemons and oranges, jasmine, honeysuckle.

       When I travel, I always pick up pine cones, smooth river stones and sea shells.
       I like post cards, teddy bears, the color blue, silver and white jewelry, toy shops, bakeries.
       I love the texture and smell of real books, especially when I own them and can underline in them, leaving tracks.
       I like doors and windows, open to the outside, open to the inside.
       Kaleidoscopes and marbles.
       The pink and blue and green and red giraffe in my bedroom.

       Maybe falling in love with things keeps our senses alive to the beauty all around us--and in my book, that's religion, too.