A List of Things I Love

The poetry of everyday

I love. That could be the end of the sentence, but I love sentences. I love words huddled together like strangers trying to survive a frigid night. I love rock sculptures built in windstorms. I love sandcastles crafted inches from the waves.

I love the drama of an 80’s ballad. I love grandparents holding hands in rocking chairs on the porches of old houses in northern Maine. I love penguins, though I’ve never met one. I love how shocked I was when I realized my Superman cape couldn’t lift me into the sky. I love that all these decades later, I can still be that exact same kind of surprised.

I love cucumbers straight from the garden. I love old typewriters even if they don’t work. I love imagining I am a bird who is imagining what it’s like to be human in the dead of winter, wearing an upside-down nest made of yarn atop the head. I love wishing wells and the dreams that fill them.

I love scared rescue dogs who can’t live in homes with small children. I love the kids in junior high talent contests who always forget their lines. I love the nervous love in their parents’ chests. I love mother starlings racing home to their babies’ open and rowdy beaks. I love the perfect smiles of people with crooked teeth.

I love daydreaming about the pep talks butterflies give to depressed caterpillars. I love that bumblebees taste with their feet. I love when it’s so cold out I can walk atop the sparkling snow. I love tiny libraries. I love stained glass windows in people’s homes.

I love how my partner takes karaoke far too seriously. I love my very first crush in the 4th grade, wherever he is, whoever he became. I love phone booths in London. I love ketchup chips from Canada. I love Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

I love the six perfect holes in my most worn pair of boots. I love that pigeons can recognize themselves in photographs. I love that laughter is more contagious than the flu. I love thank-you letters mailed to teachers twenty years after they graduate. I love the romance of merge signs.

I love watching people pull over on the side of the road to take pictures of a rainbow. I love that I can fix almost anything with shoelaces or duct tape. I love listening to my partner yell, “Andrea! Where did my shoelaces go this time!?” I love pointing out the window at our singing wind chime.

I love listening for the quietest notes of the loudest songs. I love carnivals in the parking lots of tiny towns. I love paper planes with love notes written inside. I love watching children realize that the seashells on the beach are free. I love the perfect contentment of a kite caught in a tree.

I love coffee shops on Saturday mornings. I love the kind kids who have hard lives. I love the mean kids who haven’t yet learned a better way to survive. I love that after chemotherapy, my straight hair grew back in curls. I love the tiny hurt that makes each pearl. I love trying to jump over puddles and failing.

I love that cows have best friends. I love that fleeting moment of annoyance while deep in writing a poem, someone interrupts to ask me to come look at the sunset. I love the instant that follows, when I recognize that to be a true poet, I must abandon every poem for every pink sky.

I love the pink sky and the sound of my grumpy neighbor opening his door at the same time that I do. I love both of us peeling off the husks of our minds to taste the sweetness of the world’s truth. I love what I have in common with people I have nothing in common with.

I love that my best friends kiss me on the forehead whenever I am sick. I love the baristas in fancy coffee shops who never ever smile. I love old diners with signs that say, “Stay A While.” I love the desert. I love the sea.

I love how much longer this list would be if the sunset were not, in this very second, calling me.

And I love all of you, friends, for caring about what I love. What are you loving today?

Love, Andrea 🖤