Hot! Hot! Hot!

It's in the mid-90s here today, and normally I'd be complaining about the heat.

But as I notice what's going on in the Pacific Northwest, I feel fortunate that it is only 94 degrees here today. Perspective is a beautiful thing.

I had a relative once, I'm sure everyone has this relative, who said, "It's not so bad that it can't get worse." I prefer to think in positives rather than negatives, so I'm likely instead to notice how fortunate I am and to celebrate all the things for which I am grateful. And they are many. I need to keep noticing in order to see them.

It's easy to get lost in the heat of the moment.

So an important spiritual discipline for me is presence. I'd started to write "giving thanks," but there's a layer beneath that is foundational. Nothing else is possible without presence. 

I'm thinking about cherries today. 

I'm eating them also. They're one of my favorite fruits and I always feel so fortunate when cherry season comes around. I remember when I was a little girl, watching my mom devour with delight huge handfuls when they were in season. Lately, she's been telling a story about how when she was little, she used to stuff herself with cherries because she loved them so much. I think one of the reasons I love them so much is because of that memory I have from childhood of my mother's delight and enjoyment. 

It's been nearly 20 years since I visited Washington state for the first time. I was out there for a workshop and it was cherry season. Farm stands lined the roads with freshly-picked cherries for sale. It was the first time I tried Rainier cherries and I fell in love with their sweet juiciness. I have no idea how much I ate, but I really could not get enough of them, especially at the height of ripeness, freshly picked from the tree. 

I watched the news yesterday with some agony as they filmed the shriveled cherry crop, anticipating exceptional losses due to the heat. Cherry season has just begun and they are in the stores for now, but I imagine a short season, and probably a disrupted apple season if this weather continues.

So the cherries on my counter are treasure. 

The temperature here is now 97 degrees. Still, we are fortunate when compared with others. I read that it's nearly 120 degrees in Siberia. Here I've got the shades lowered where the sun is shining. I move around the house with the sun. Every now and then I turn on the AC for a few minutes. Oddly, the fans and the shades are keeping my apartment comfortable. I marvel at that. 

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.