delight

It's nearly 3am. It's noisy, in that various types of air movement can sound really loud in the middle of the night. Fan blowing, refrigerator cooling itself, distant currents past an open window.

Today Cathie expressed some amused frustration at the fact that she doesn't often see me acting "delighted" or "enthusiastic," a comment I was genuinely surprised by. To be fair, this conversation started on the topic of eating -- and I admit, I get less and less "enthusiastic" about food every year -- though there are exceptions to the rule, mainly sushi. Cathie is a food lover, and she gets riled when she presents me with something bought or baked and I don't emote sufficiently. In this she and my husband are well paired, since he too would love it if I'd find as much pleasure in front of the open refrigerator as he does. He's a great cook, and he probably thinks it's wasted on me. Not really; I know good food when I eat it. And I like to bake, by the way, and I do it pretty well -- when I do it, maybe once every couple of months. (Interestingly, my spouse doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, so my cheesecakes don't impress him.) Cathie doesn't care for sushi -- lots of people don't care for sushi -- but twice per year Ron and I go to Origami in the warehouse district and blow a large quantity of cash. And man, that is "delightful" in my book. Overall though I just don't want to wake up each day thinking about what's for dinner, as my spouse does. But does my life lack "delight?" I don't think so.

In point of fact, I am constantly noticing things that interest me. I find many many more places, subjects, and people fascinating than I have time to study or consider. The world is a rich, chaotic, overwhelmingly sensual experience and it takes up all my time. Maybe my level of enthusiasm lacks great peaks -- though it admits occasional valleys -- I don't know. I wish I had another 12 hours to every day. And actually, my main complaint about food is that it takes up too much of my day. So I'm up at 3am, because it's alive time. Aware time.

But instead of blogging I really should be SEWING!