happy rocks

Answering this week’s Share Your World questions…

 

List 2 things you have to be happy about?

1. I’m just passing the halfway point in the 31-day My 500 Words challenge. I’ve been diligent, and have written 500 or more words each day for over 2 weeks now. One factor which has helped me persevere in this challenge has been… another challenge. lol. It’s Linda Hill’s Just Jot it January. I’ve been religious with that too. So I’m happy about sticking with it on both of those fronts and happy about the writing which has come of it.
2. It makes me happy to have gotten out and participated in the Women’s March yesterday. Just getting out of my routine and doing something new was great, not to mention the satisfaction of physically acting out my personal value system. Walking my talk, so to speak. What’s more, I reconnected with a brilliant old friend and can hope to see more of her in the weeks to come.

Have you ever owned a rock, pet rock, or gem that is not jewelry?

I have always been the kind of person to pick up eye-catching rocks and put them in a pocket. For a while, when I would take a walk for my health, I would make sure to pick up a rock at the farthest point of the walk from my home, and to bring it back and place it in a flowerpot. Eventually, the flower died, and I just had a little pile of rocks in a pot by my door, a testament to my exercise.

What this question really brings to mind though, are two gifts I have been given. One was from my first big love, way back in high school. She knew I was way into Flood – an album by They Might Be Giants – on which is found this song:

So she gave me a nice smooth stone and a length of string to wrap around it.

The other gift I’m thinking of was a bead given me by a man named Scott Jessie, who was a dear friend in my earliest college days. He gave it to me to take along on my trip to Alaska in the summer following our freshman year. When I got back, he said well, where is the bead? I said, Scott, I threw it in the Pacific Ocean. He exclaimed, why did you do that?! And I answered, so that I would always know where it was.

Are you a hugger or a non-hugger?

Hugger. Big hugger. Just this morning, I gave my mom a long long hug, put my head on her shoulder and pretended to snore.

What inspired you or what did you appreciate this past week? 

It was very inspiring to see the big turnout at the Women’s March in my city. I used to live in a very liberal little city, and I took for granted the presence of a lot of people around me who I considered to have their hearts in the right place. Where I’m living now, the contingent of people I consider like-minded with me is relatively small, and it was wonderful to see so many of them coming together to demonstrate.