contented

When I was fifteen, twenty or even twenty-five, "contented" was not a state I pursued. A simple, grounded, in-my-bones kind of happiness-- a happiness wedded to peace, not to ecstasy-- was a foreign and perhaps undesirable state of being.

It's possible that at twenty-five I was beginning to look for it. I can't quite remember. But certainly the much-younger me had too much energy and ambition and craving to accept a state of deep satisfaction. Deep satisfaction definitely would have sounded like a cop-out.

For right now, deep satisfaction is highly pleasurable. There is no peripheral pull for it to be otherwise. It walks slowly, listens to the birds, tastes the coffee and just says "thank you, this is good."

utility

A lot of things have a purpose though you may have to look hard for it.... I save a lot of stuff. I simply hate throwing things away unless I absolutely have to.

The little plastic clamps on the Iggy's bread bags, for example. They've been piling up in my kitchen drawer and last week, I figured out their purpose: they fasten the plastic tarp around my bike so it doesn't blow off in a rainstorm.

I love that.

The same is true for experiences. Looking hard, I can find the purpose in every one of my experiences. If I don't have to, I don't want to throw any away. Every lame boyfriend I ever had was a lesson drawing me closer to Cristiano. Every job-- no matter how mundane or ill-suited-- a patch on the quilt of my career.

Peace is figuring out how to embrace it all. Even the wars. Even the oil spills.

I'm still working on the big stuff.