enjoy

A wee trick here I learned a while back.
I was taking everything for granted. I ate the food I wanted. Drank the drink too. I went on walks. I read. I wrote. I cooked. I cycled. I took photographs. I played and sung on my guitar. The children were a big part of my life. I visited friends near and far. I went on sometimes two holidays abroad a year. I worked in a job that is very challenging and rewarding.
When I was at my lowest and nothing seemed like enough to help, where I couldn't figure out this funny wee muddle that was myself I had an epiphany. These things that I take as everyday things I do, are actually the very things I love.
Everything that I wanted in life was already around me. I had quite naturally drifted into all the things that I had a passion for. All I had to do was to settle in, gather what was already there around and enjoy.
That word 'enjoy'. It seems over-used and bland but when I starting using it to describe everyday things that I took for granted I suddenly saw the seam of gold running through my life.
So, I don't have a morning coffee: I enjoy it.
I enjoy a walk, a bus-ride to work.
I enjoy a conversation, a laugh, a shared privation.
I enjoy an apple ( imagine all the things in the world that a wee apple goes through, travels through to end up in my hand bringing it to my mouth for a sweet crunch).
I enjoy the nonsense.
I enjoy my times of solitude.
Etc and so forth...
So this morning I was up and enjoyed a strong coffee just the way I like it. I enjoyed the morning papers then I was up and out just before sunrise. I really enjoyed being out at this quiet time, where the street and the light were still half asleep. I enjoyed the early chilly air in my face. I enjoyed the rattle of a shutter being raised for the day's trading. I enjoyed my ability to be mobile, that my legs and health could take me where I wanted to go. To enjoy a walk along the river, alert for photographic possibilities in the rising sun. And of course I enjoyed finding and framing this image.
So I don't do the things that I once thought were humdrum, I enjoy them. And to emphasise the enjoyment is to emphasise how lucky and blessed I am in a hundred million ways. And that's just Monday.
Right off to enjoy cooking up some Parripu and Sri Lankan okra curry for dinner, whilst listening.. I mean enjoying some Gillian Welch.