Voice, Imagery or Pigeon

Awards from other writers are an awesome thing. It means they admire your writing, or maybe they like your “voice” or the imagery you present. Or maybe they just think you are a chump.

I prefer to think this Happy 101 award, presented by Wendy in New Zealand, has nothing to do with the last reason. In fact, I like to imagine it is awarded with the sincerest flattery and felicitations. Hopefully Wendy will back me up on this.

So now I must list ten items which send a rush of joyous rapture sizzling through my arteries. This has required a great deal of thought. Just today, during my break, I brought paper and pen into the break room to make my co-workers each list ten items. They hate it when I do this. Many of them jumped up and ran from the room mumbling something about their breaks being over. Others stared with wide eyes, palms on the table, shoulders tense, poised for flight, but unable to get to the door in time.

In helping these poor people decide what ten things made them happy, my own list began to grow. I decided not to put family on the list because, unless you have family members who are vampires or zombies, being around family is kind of a given. The same holds true with friends. So here is my list in no particular order of importance.

1. I love the wild, raw passion of the ocean coast; the pounding surf, the screech of shorebirds, the salty, clean air, and the fluffy white foam at the edge of the waves as the water entices the sand back to the sea. The kaleidoscope of iridescent color when the sun’s rays touch the spindrift riding over churning waves sends my heart spinning. I love the percussion as the waves slam into rocks and send joyous glittering sprays into the air.

2. I love being on vessels. Sailing craft are my favorite, but I like the power of a motor boat or the sleek quiet of a kayak, or the rocky teetering of a canoe.

3. I love music; sometimes classical when I need to rest a racing mind or mournful ballads when I’m feeling sentimental, or hot, Latin dance music when the sun heats the skin, the drums heat the soul, and a frozen margarita waits patiently.

4. I love thunderstorms; the kind where lightning flashes and thunder crashes and the rain pounds down, drowning out the drone of everyday life, creating an enchanting world of excitement and zeal.

5. I love the radiant oranges, reds, yellows, and golds of leaves dancing in a hot autumn sun.

6. I love misty spring rain on the velvety purple and yellow pedals of a pansy and beading on baby green leaves.And when the sun peeks out a short while later, I love the smell of moisture as it returns home in wavering clouds of steam.

7. In spring, I love my drive home. First I drive by a pasture with spindly-legged foals frolicking in the tall, green grasses. Around the next corner a pasture with woolly white lambs wobbling amid green wheat-grass enchants me. Then comes a pasture filled with reddish brown cattle rustling through the close-cropped field with five or six calves running helter-skelter into older, seasoned veterans who reach down and nose the babies with fondness.

8. Because I cannot choose one over the other, I love our national and state parks: The Olympic National Park rain forest, with moss drooping down from four hundred foot Douglas firs, the vastness of the Grand Canyon, the snowy mountain peak of Mt. Rainier, the volcanic devastation of Mt. Lassen, the stunning beauty of Glacier National Park with its turn-of-the-20th-century lodges and silty turquoise lakes, and the majestic empire of the redwood trees in all of the California redwood state parks, just to name a few.

9. Chocolate.

10. On a trip to a trinket shop along the Oregon coast, I searched for a square-rigged ship charm to wear on a silver necklace. I could not find one, but this one called out, “Hey, Melanie, buy me. I promise I will make you happy. You’ll not be sorry.” It was right. I feel happy whenever I wear it.

I hope this fulfills the requirements of the award. Perhaps I should list Wendy as someone who also makes me happy by graciously awarding me with these trophies. Thank you, Wendy.