This week, On Being with Krista Kippett asks the question: Have you fallen in love with something today? I love the answer in Mary Oliver’s poem Mindful.

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

That’s how I am with my world though I cannot express it as clearly and lovely as the poet. My life feels very small and I am but a small person. Yet I am awed by the very ordinariness of what is my life. Today, I have fallen in love with the peace and darkness of an early Saturday morning. I love the light on the bridge driving to the YWCA and the swimming pool waiting just for me. Mostly I am the lone swimmer on Saturday mornings. I fell in love with the softness of the water, how it held me in its warmth as I swam up and down the pool’s length.

Today I fell in love with time in friendship – the easy conversation, mutual trust and appreciation. The coffee was adequate, the meal meager but I am nourished in body and spirit. It is very little but a lot that I ask for. A little time. A little conversation. A little love.

That’s all I have on the 5th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.