expect.

I have come to believe in knowing what you love. What I mean is that each of us knows, deep down, the things that bring us happiness. These are things we read or eat or talk about or do. And we know them.

We are here and alive now, are we not?

I have just finished reading An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler and it is one of the most beautiful books I've read in awhile. It's the kind of beautiful that makes your heart feel a little swollen, a little fuller. The kind that makes you think I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive. It is full of the simplest pleasures and the reality we find deep inside our survival, in the food we grow, prepare, and put inside our bodies. But the pleasure runs beyond survival, and so it is precious.

You know the things that make you happy, I think. You know the things that you love. You know the moments when you're alive. It has taken me some poverty and heartbreak and hard work to realize that I know these things too. This might be very silly advice for me to give, but there it is: take, live, do these things now. Do them now. Find the things, especially the small and simple things, and fill your life up with them.

I'm reading The Gift right now, by Lewis Hyde, and he has a thoughtful section devoted to gift economies and the ways that scarcity and market systems breed constant, ever-growing discontent. There's an old tradition of deep satisfaction and happiness to be found among people who live with very little and who have a generous spirit.

My point is only that life has a way of getting very full of things that don't mean much. Some of it is necessary. Jobs to pay the rent and obligations to be met. But it's worthwhile to combat some of the empty things with the things that make you happy.

It's worth remembering.

It's also worth remembering that you will only be capable of what you expect of yourself, so expect a great deal. I am saying this to myself quite a bit lately. I expect something big will come of it.