Lovely Little Things

Lately I am all about the details. 

I like my coffee near-black and my tea with a spoonful of honey. I like things simple and in their natural form. I profoundly appreciate life's little annoyances--the flyaways at my hairline, the lipstick stain on the soda straw, the snag in the stitching of my favorite sweater. I notice the way the air settles on the first day of summer, humid and oppressive and scorching and freeing all at once. 

I am trying to be aware of these simple things, to be present in each moment, to find value in what we tend to overlook most. 

Take this picture, for example. One pant leg rolled up further than the other. The shorts themselves are homemade--the frays are remnants of an amateur seamstress and a blunt razor blade. Wherever they came from--the Goodwill bin, the owner that wore them last--they are unique. The focus is fuzzier than I expected it to be, more like a photograph you'd find lying in a box in the attic, amongst the other piles of tucked away memories. And each ring of mine tells a story of its own--the ones found in boutiques and emporiums, the ones I've received because someone knew me well enough to give them. 

I don't believe you have to always feel big and full and bursting with life to feel happy. I'm coming to find that, while those moments of passion, wholeness, this-is-it moments are important, there's also a quiet integrity to simplicity, contentedness. The details. Which ones are going to break the calm? What lovely, little things might take your breath away?