Love List

I feel as though I've recently developed a bit of insomnia. Right now, I am hunched over the glow of this computer screen, wrapped up in comforter much too big for my bed, knowing that I have to get up in seven hours and thinking about how I don't do very well when I don't get my full seven hours of sleep.

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And I let my mind wander, and I let the complaints pile up. Never mind that I dearly love wrapping myself in this comforter too big for my bed. Instead, I focus on how I am alone in it. I think about all things I have to do tomorrow, all the things that will go wrong, the defenses I have to start crafting now, the knots that are forming in my shoulders and neck, the money I will spend getting those knots untangled, how my money could be better spent, how my time could be better spent, the books I'm not reading, the words I'm not writing, the life I'm not living.

I'm giving myself reprieve tonight. Tonight, to lull me to sleep, I will let myself consider the things I love. Those lovely things that make me smile or pause or laugh. Things like:

• When there is a loose piece of concrete in the sidewalk, and you step on it, and for a moment you tilt a little bit in a funny way. 
• WNYC's Radiolab.
• Elvis Presley.
• Frozen blueberries and the way you can pop them on the roof of your mouth. 
• My collar bones and swimmer's shoulders. 
• The fact that there is a word in Russian that means, "The sound a chicken makes when she sits down very fast." I don't know what that word is. 
• Motorcycles. The more rumbly the better. 
• Striped shirts.
• Clicking heels on hardwood, preferably marble floors.
• Dancing dancing dancing. 
• 68 degrees. 
• Bright cherry, fire engine red. 
• Drums. Pretending to play them, feeling their beats hit my chest at concerts. 
• Thinking that maybe at one point or another, everyone feels like this. And they get up in the morning and accomplish magnificent things. 
• I'm capable of accomplishing magnificent things. 
• Glass doorknobs. 
• The BBC. 
• Pie. 

This is not an exhaustive list. In fact, I will probably return to this exercise soon. And I will keep these reminders with me, hold them close. What is your love list?