Simple Pleasures.....

I have been thinking lately about dropping out of the race for the grumpiest-mummy-there-ever-was title. I'm not sure why, but I've found myself a front runner in those stakes over the previous few years. I wondered to myself what might make me a 'happier' person, one who isn't so negative all the time, or finding fault in ideas that people might throw at me, finding the thing that upsets me about the situation, I want to ask "Why not?" in the positive, not the negative.

I want to be more like my friend Clare, who when she sees you, no matter how crap she is feeling, her whole face lights up, I love the way she makes you feel special because you dropped your son at drama class at the same time she did (well, no I was probably much later than her, because I also love the fact that she's always punctual and relaxed, and drop-dead gorgeous).

I want to be more like my friend Kate, who has that ability to share the love genuinely with anyone and everyone, she'll give you a hug and she'll mean it, and you'll know it, and you don't even have to have been birthed by her. I sometimes struggle to hug with feeling even to those I birthed (well, 'birthed' may be stretching it a bit, seeing as how I had four caesareans). And she's drop-dead gorgeous.

I want to be more like my friend Nush, who can be painting the house (whilst looking drop-dead gorgeous), have a trillion visitors all summer and still make room for your son when you have a wedding to go to and he's asked if I could see if he can stay there for the night. She does things like take photos of them having a ball in the swimming pool at 10pm, and emails them to you so that when you get home from the wedding (where your phone went flat from being stuck in your handbag, wedged between the Carefree, the tissues and your Guess purse you got for Christmas, and trying to get a signal for hours on end - so then you wonder if anyone has been trying to contact you because your four kiddos are at four different houses and in four different directions from where you are sat on the Halo Deck at the Sebel Trinity Wharf, sipping expensive bubbles (I know it was expensive, because a) I don't often drink, b) I can't like wine, c) the more expensive the wine, the more I can't seem to like it, and d) I got the heel of my shoe stuck in a crack in the step and I wasn't co-ordinated enough to un-stick my shoe gracefully and unobtrusively and soberishly. I was, however, co-ordinated enough to sing along at the top of my voice with "John, from Te Puna" - that's all anybody could help me with when I asked who the band was?! Admittedly, he knew more words than I, but being the trouper that I am, I didn't let that stop me ;o). Anyway, I digress (amazing, I know) .....so that when you get home from the wedding and check your emails, you get to smile at your big, goofy son having a whale of a time, and you wish that you were a fun and caring and cool Mum like Nush.

And I wish I was more like my friend Hay, who actually *reads* books by John Holt, instead of just getting them out of the library, then renewing them because I never got round to even reading the blurb on the back cover. Even after renewing them, I return them when *that* extended period of grace runs out and I am still yet to read further than the title. Not only does my frriend Hay read these books, but she walks the walk. She has the balls to trust her children and their autonomy, and she has the balls to trust herself trusting her children. And she lives in Welly-land. And she is drop dead gorgeous, and she has new glasses. I wish I had new glasses.

And I wish I was more like my friend Cally, who writes great poetry, makes hand-bound books, plays the marimba, dances ceroc and attends Womad. And she is drop dead gorgeous. I would love to be that expressive of myself, to have the skills to create my own little piece of special in the world.

And what about my friend Louise, who is drop dead gorgeous and *early* to everything! The only times I've ever been early for anything is when people tell me that things start 1/2 an hour earlier than they actually do (even then, I'm 20 minutes late! Which makes me 10 minutes early by everyone else's standards).

And, my point is, that I had been thinking and pondering and assessing and pyscho-analysing why it was, perhaps, that they were everything I dreamed I could be. Maybe that's why they are in my life, so that I can learn from them. So I figured I might write myself a little (well, it started out little) list of simple pleasures, and choose one at random to do when I remember.

You know what? Today's Simple Pleasure was "Read some poetry".

So I check out Kate's blog, and she has a poem! And I check out Cally's blog, and she has a plethora of poems! Of course, Hay's blog never lets me down.

So I had a wee browse on the interweb ;o) and I got strangely engrossed in this blokes poetry, go figure - a gay, heartbroken man was speaking to me this night?

I realised why, when I read and read and read and came across this one and actually laughed out loud! His "notes" at the bottom read: "I think we all have friends and acquaintances with certain skills... We look at them and ask, "How do they do that?". For me I sometimes feel a deep lack in certain very basic social skills. This poem is a mini-inventory of abilities I crave."

A Simple Pleasure bringing me a Simple Revelation. And my friends rock.