Things that make me happy.
Here are some things that make me happy:
The way that leaves look when the sun shines through them. Like they’re glowing.
No matter the season, the light makes such vibrant colours as it glistens through them.
The way the stars in the sky make my heart wonder if fate is real.
I always question how I can exist in the same universe as something so beautiful.
The golden sunsets in the Drakensberg that look like the sky is melting, with effervescence, slowly into the horizon, hiding behind the mountains.
The smell of old books, a little bit musty but nostalgic too. When you hold them it’s a sensual reminder that these books hold other worlds.
They hold memories themselves and have been held in many hands before reaching yours.
The feeling when you finish a book that consumed you. Like heartbreak and joy muddled together into the longing to time travel, just so you can read it again for the first time. Even if it means experiencing that joyful heartbreak all over again.
Wandering around a new town or place you’ve never been to before, wondering who makes the best coffee and how, to you, this place never existed until this very moment, when you arrived.
The feeling of microscopic smallness when you realise that the world around you, and every place you visit for the first time, has existed far longer than you and your tiny life.
Like your life is but a speck of dust in the grand expanse of time and space.
The freedom of that realisation.
The knowledge that your little life is still a speck of stardust.
Dancing to songs that remind you of being a little kid.
Belting out musical theatre show tunes alone in your car with no one to disrupt your shining moment.
The way that music transports you to hyper specific moments, a devastating and glorious form of time travel.
The way that certain melodies can make you feel like you’re inside of the notes.
The way that a single note can hold an entire universe, a multitude of lifetimes.
The way the next note can hold an entirely different universe, brilliant and unique in all its own ways.
Pizza with extra cheese, especially when it’s burrata mozzarella.
Coffee that’s poured into a ceramic mug.
Holding hands with my lover.
Bicycles in the park.
Things that are golden.
Bees.
The way that waterfalls seem to hold rainbows and magic in each drop of water.
The way that my cheeks look rosy when I wake up from an afternoon nap.
The moon.
Day dreaming on the couch, while thunder storms outside.
Tea, with one sugar and a dash of milk. Vanilla rooibos to be precise.
The look in my lover’s eyes when I laugh.
A kiss on my forehead.
A kiss on my cheek.
A kiss on my lips.
And cuddles before bed.
