If you steal my sunshine

Today has been a weird one, what with one thing and another so if you're feeling bewildered, anxious, angry or any combination thereof nobody could blame you and certainly I won't.

That said, I am more and more of the opinion that finding, appreciating, and celebrating the small moments of beauty or whimsy in the everyday is an important survival skill. Despair is like a warm, heavy coat that it would be so, so easy to slip into. And look, maybe you put that coat on for a day or two. But I think it's necessary to take that heavy garment off and hang it back up on the hook sooner rather than later.

So I'm sharing some small but fine things that happened to me today (and giving you a late nineties earworm¹ in the process, YOU'RE WELCOME).

Tiny joy #1: Traffic light gets exfoliated

On my way home from work I saw a worker giving the crossing signals on the main road a jolly good scrub with this very distinctive long handled brush.

I have never seen the traffic lights getting cleaned before and I found the whole thing much more delightful than I would have expected. I think a big part of it is how comical this cleaning brush is - a good metre and a half in length, red, and with a jaunty curve at the end. All terminating in a brush that's smurfily blue. If a cleaning tool could be Papa Smurf then this is the one.

This tiny moment in my day is not changing the world but it doesn't need to.

Tiny joy #2: Peaches

The tree at the end of my driveway has, in the last couple of days, started to drop delicious peaches. When I got home from work there were a good dozen or so littering the driveway.

I wish that this photo was in smellovision because when I walked onto the property the smell was similar to what wafts through the kitchen when I'm roasting these babies. Just close your eyes and imagine what a dozen peaches that have been sitting in the sun on hot concrete half the day smell like. It was heavenly.

Tiny joy #3: Little lady friend

I did a bit of garden work (which included picking up all the peaches and gratuitously huffing them) and as I was putting the gardening tools away I looked down and saw a ladybug on my arm.

Six year old me would have been delighted by this and actually 50 year old me quite likes it too. Most bugs freak me out a bit but ladybugs do not bother me and in fact, it turns out I quite like the sensation of a ladybug's teeny legs tickling my arm hair.

So, those are my tiny treasures from today. I hope your day had some in it too. Or maybe tomorrow will.

For what I've learned today is that no man, woman, or child (or man-child for that matter), nor any non-binary person (existing as they do) can steal my joy.

If you steal my sunshine... I will simply MAKE MORE SUNSHINE.

May all your sunshine-making attempts be sucessful, e hoa mā.

¹ This song is even more fitting for this post when you know that it was written by Marc Constanzo (of Len) about being at a rave, and the music video which had no story or plan had a budget of $100,000 that was mostly spent on alcohol so that everyone could hang out and have fun (in between which they might shoot a video, for funsies)

² Lil Jack Black reference there, for you.