Project Reverb prompt: “Crazy | What one little thing drove you crazy this year? Was it unique to this past year or has it been buggin’ you for a while? How do you intend to get rid of it or resolve it in 2014?”

I’m not feeling this prompt, not today. I don’t want to talk what drives me crazy, what bothers me. Sure, I’ve got my list. I do a pretty good job of generating suffering for myself by resisting, rejecting, being irritated, worrying — maybe that’s actually the thing driving me crazy?

I’m more interested right now, especially today, in what’s made me happy, what I love, what is good in the world. One thing is this tree, one of three along the trail we walk most mornings. Every year, just after Thanksgiving, someone sneaks out and decorates all three trees. Once they are done, other people add to it. Just the other day, I noticed this tree now has strands of silver and red tinsel garland. I love the way we, in secret and without reward, do things to make each other happy.

Something else that made me happy is this poem, hand-typed by the brilliant Maya Stein, send to me by request of the dear Sherry Richert Belul. The end lines are my favorite, “I wonder if they, too, blushed at their resurrected beauty, this green they had believed long dead still whispering, unstoppably, inside them.”

More happiness: Eric washing my car while Sam sits in the back seat, a vet who gives you her personal email address so that you can get a hold of her if you need her over the holiday, the promise of babies and puppies. I love the way we take care of each other.