Friday, January 25, 2013

Delicious


A list of some delicious things:

Sex.
Chocolate.
The velvety undersides of floppy dog ears.
The sudden shock of bright red berries against black branches and white snow.
Crunchy new words.
Music which you expect not to like but which takes you over.
The high after strenuous exercise.
The high after a migraine attack.
Lovely readers, smart readers.
The way little children's bodies smell.
Waking up and realizing that you still have an hour's worth of sleep left before having to get up.

Now tell me why that list turns me into a Hallmark card goddess?  What is it that makes me cynical of delights?  Being a born pessimist, always wondering what the future cost of each blissful moment might be?  Or is it something similar to Tolstoy's "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" in that it's much harder to write about happiness than about unhappiness because the former has less variety, gets repeated too often and ultimately begins to sound trite?