I was able to spend some time with one of my favorite kids today, my former student I’ll call Clara. I taught Clara from preschool until the end of elementary school. She lives around the corner from me, and I’m also friends with her mom, so we’ve stayed a part of each other’s lives even as she’s now almost through 8th grade. Clara used to be quiet and a bit reserved in class, but in the past few years, has totally come into her own. She’s laid back, confident, and finds joy in the little things and honestly, I’m in my thirties, and these traits are still goals. The kids, as they say, are alright. Here are some little things that I think embody the notions of ease, confidence, and joy for your weekend.

If the past few years and a cancer diagnosis have taught me anything, the simple things are really the big things. There are too many to count: getting to sit outside for a moment between meetings, making your destination just in time for the thunderstorm. A sale on your favorite pint of ice cream, making silly jokes with a friend over text and laughing until your cheeks hurt. When the big stuff is precarious, the little stuff is even more important – and that’s what today’s post is all about.

A moment of vulnerability: I struggle with what to write here many weeks, folks. I never want to seem oblivious to the suffering of the world, and there’s been so much of that to go around of late. I don’t want to be that equivalent by pretending the world is fine, thank you very much, because it’s not. (I recall, shuddering, that Mario Batali once responded to a sexual assault allegation claim in an email that ended with a cinnamon roll recipe. Talk about being totally out of touch.) What’s the solution, I wonder? After cancer, after the first whispers of COVID, after gun safety laws fail to be adopted by a country with endless mass shootings – why not just eat tasteless mush, see only darkness, and do nothing other than accept bitterness as our sole emotion?

In case your seasonal allergies haven’t informed you yet, we are 17 days away from Spring. Instead of thinking of it like “biding my time,” which I absolutely do, I’m trying to find some enjoyment in the month. There’s excitement in looking over the seed catalog I was sent and planning my garden, and the daylight is stretching a bit later so I can walk my dog closer to dinner time. It reminds me a bit of the time between scans and treatment, to be honest. How can I make joy, even here? How can I make this fun, even now? I hope the following ideas give you some motivation to do the same.