Spring flowers!

I haven't been writing a lot in my posts lately, and among the things I haven't been writing a lot about is that this is not just a blog about joy, but about pure and selfish joy. I think sometimes I've lost track of that for myself as well, but I also think it's partly because it's becoming internalized and that I take it for granted that these minutes or hours in my day are all for me, and not for anyone else. Which has been making a significant difference in my outlook and enjoyment of life, and also has made me much happier to do things for other people (I have always liked to do things for other people, but I don't feel put upon anymore, because I'm also doing things for me EVERY DAY) and also it's made it easier for me to ask for help from other people. In all, a net gain all around.

And so, it's with this context, that I write about a day of doing joyful things that were NOT all for me, and were still completely brought me pure joy. It was Josh's birthday. He wanted to go to the gym and the botanic garden and to come home and bake birthday dessert. I wanted to do all those things too, so we went together to the gym, and I ran for 35 minutes on the treadmill. (I'm starting to feel better! My iron infusions are working!) Then Josh creamed me in a fierce game of ping pong. (He uses spin. It gets me every time.) Then we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and things are starting to bloom! It was in the low 50s, very Spring-like, and we got to see beautiful dwarf irises, a few dwarf tulips, and the very very very very very first magnolia buds starting to open. Oh yeah, and an early-flowering peach tree. Nothing opens my heart like these early flowers. Puts me right back to East Bare Hill Road, when I would go out barefoot even though the ground was still really cold, and I would basically just wait for everything to start blooming. Forsythia, flowering quince, lilacs, apples, iris, lilies, violets. And then eventually the ground warms up, and eventually everything's out, and eventually you take it all for granted—as if it's always Spring, and then it's always Summer. Or at least as if it's always supposed to be.