Really Nice Things

To name a few: The way babies grin toothlessly from produce-filled shopping carts; and the way the mountains sometimes emerge from the fog and mist to remind me that some things are unshakable; and the way coffee shops fill me with a warmth that has nothing to do with hot beverages and everything to do with the people around me; and the way that, when you submerge photo paper in developer, unimaginable and beautiful truths burst out of the whiteness; and the way that, one week in late January, my morning schedule synced perfectly with the grapefruit sunrise; and the way that I sometimes catch the eye of a stranger waiting at a red light next to me and we grin at each other like lost friends; and the way elderly couples holding hands always fill me with joy and hope and jealousy until I almost cry; and the way bread tastes after you've been sitting in a restaurant for an hour watching other people's food float by; and the way people sometimes hop down the halls without touching the white tiles like a throwback to elementary lava tag; and the way my dog lets me use her like a fleecy black pillow when I can't stand to be alone; and the way that lockers are shared like tandem bicycles; and the way the cheerleaders dress for a tropical climate despite the actual weather; and the way that a line from a song I've heard a hundred times can suddenly stop me dead in my tracks; and the way the silence of the darkroom envelops everyone in an unspoken truce, an individual collective embrace; and the way music sometimes floats eerily out of an unseen practice room like the soundtrack to your life; and the way people sometimes chew on their pens as if they want to suck out all the ink and spit it back out in concrete sentences.

And, of course, the way we get by.