I missed the sunrise again. By 6:30 the sun is already high in the sky, the ocean awash in shimmering radiance. My daughter sleeps with my sleep mask. I handed it to her the first time she rolled over this morning. I'd just got up and had water on for tea. I wrote in my morning journal about the beauty of these days and the perception of time. Thinking ahead, time feels short. Fully present, the moment feels endless. There's something in that for us as we move through our days, especially the days we'd like never to end. Like when my daughter visits. I'd love her to move back home. Life should be spent with the people you love.
Yesterday's storm predictions for today were worse than those of the day before. Small miracles continue. Our splotchy and streaky sunburns may keep us from the beach for most of the day, but there's an alluring ferry ride that travels across the Cape Fear River to a quaint fishing village in a 35-minute trip, where there are boutiques and galleries and cafes. On this end of the ferry, there are new thrift stores with treasures yet to be discovered.
Two years ago I waited at the train station in town for my daughter and her fiancé, who'd come for a wedding. We had lunch on the river and said good-bye as quickly as we said hello. I wrote a blog post that morning called, Love Song for Nearly Perfect Days.
Could it be something about early-June? A fun coincidence?
In those days we traveled without thought, taking for granted that we'd always be able to travel that way. Who would have thought that just six months later around Christmas, when we said hello and good-bye again without worry for the future, it would be the last time we would see each other for 18 months because of limitations related to a global pandemic?
I take nothing for granted any more. And maybe I'm living a little less care freely. But today stretches out before us like light on the water, and I'm happy to be here for as long as it lasts.
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 every year brings new wonder. She asks big questions from the small things in life.
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