1. Morning walks with the dogs. It’s light so early now, and everything is that particular bright early spring green. There are even baby geese in the ponds and news of baby foxes.

Not a great picture, but since the dogs were with me I couldn’t get too close

2. An award. I was joking at our English department awards ceremony last week that I wanted my friend Aparna to give me an award. A few days later, this lamp that used to belong to my friend Leslee was presented to me in a sweet little unofficial ceremony, and is now officially the weirdest thing in my office, (title previously held by me).

3. Ringo and Sam. With Burg being sick (the final diagnosis is an aggressive type of leukemia, with a prognosis of two weeks to three months), and Dexter’s birthday being this week (he would have been 14!), I am appreciating even more than usual the company and good health of these two goofballs.

4. Women who are creative, smart, kind, and funny. The ones who came to my Storybowl, the ones who couldn’t, the ones who make music and poetry, the ones who write with me, the teachers and the moms and the artists, the ones trying so hard to heal and make things better.

My living room waiting for Storybowl to start. Some day we really will get our floors refinished.

5. Eric. Always my date, making me dinner, walking the dogs, sharing private jokes with me that no one else would understand or probably think were funny, laughing with me, itching that spot I can’t reach, letting me rant about the same thing for the millionth time, helping me clean the house and then leaving so other people could come over and enjoy it, texting me in the middle of the day to see how it’s going, leaving love notes for me on the kitchen counter.

Bonus joy: flowers in the bathroom, lilacs, fresh chives, clean laundry, clean sheets on the bed, Aimee Mann’s new album, good TV, so many good books, poetry, Wild Writing, yoga, physical therapy, the internet, a cold glass of clean water, how green everything is right now, blooms and birds, clean sheets (just noticed I put this on the list twice — I must really really like clean sheets), getting the laundry done on Friday, sleeping in, taking naps, crunchy apples and crunchy peanut butter.