sei * shōnagon

Delightful things in January, à la Sei Shōnagon (c. 966-1017).

Roses the size of dim sum dishes (delightful) not yet “dead-headed” on my little college campus.  Blueberries for sale in winter.  Singing “happy birthday” in Mandarin Chinese while washing plates & glasses just because I feel like it (today is no one’s birthday that I know).  Roses are forming bright red-orange rosehips (delightful)… I’m tempted to pluck ’em to make rosehips tea (simple & delightful recipe here, plus rosehips jam).

Sore throat (not delightful) after lecturing on British Romantic ekphrastic poetry (delightful) then drinking hot chamomile tea with licorice root, slippery elm, & ginger (delightful) … and sore throat vanished (very delightful).  On-ramp to I-5 Fwy closed (ugh, not delightful at all) but I found an alternate junction (delightful). Grateful for 70-degree weather when one can wear light dresses “like summer in the midst of winter,” Marguerite Duras once wrote (delightful).

Prayer:  “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).