When Life's beating us up, it's easy to forget the beauty that awaits.

"Smell the roses," and all that trite stuff people say when you're down. Does it help??

This morning, I sent a photo I’d recently taken to a bunch of my contacts. It’s a shot out my bedroom window of the full moon on a foggy morning, at 4:02. My inner time clock’s been whacky lately, so some days I awake far earlier than I’d like, and most the time I’ll just go with it, crawl outta bed and start my day.

I was a late sleeper when I was young. Blackout shades on my bedroom windows let me sleep on the weekends, until 12 or 1:00pm. Somehow, in the course of ageing, I’ve come to love early mornings. Go figure.

My two senior cats, Tango and Samba snuggle against my torso in the mornings, and even they think it’s too early to get up and prepare to eat breakfast, but somehow they manage to follow me into the kitchen for my caffeine fix. I have the best kitties! They’re exceedingly patient, and never whine for food. I suppose they’ve learned I’m hypervigilant to their needs, and have grown to trust it.

The view out my window on the 2nd of this month was spectacular. Eerie, dark, brooding and yet gorgeous, with my mini-forest of trees silhouetted against the moon’s glow. I thought, I’ve gotta capture this~ or I’ll regret not doing so.

I’m slowly reconstituting myself, after having to navigate some horrifically stressful events of 2025. The year kicked off splendidly, as Trump (thank God) beat out the competition, but it almost immediately turned to shit in my personal world.

Thru it all, I tried to notice the tiny victories, the bits of pleasure, the observable moments of beauty, because I think there are times we’ve gotta find even miniscule ways to counter-balance our perceptions, when we can’t see a light at the end of our scary, arduously miserable tunnel, and we start to wonder if we’ll ever reach the other side!

I guess this is a simple reminder, my friends. If you can find a tiny fragment of pleasure from seeing your houseplant bloom, or birds constructing a nest under the eaves of your house or apartment, or a couple of squirrels chasing each other and playing in your yard, you are giving much-needed nourishment to your soul, as it’s trying to navigate the shitstorm that’s your present existence.

My Altadena, California home was absolutely redolent with squirrels, pre-wildfires. They’d horse around my front yard and frantically chase one another up and down the enormous bottlebrush and pine trees that graced the lawn. I’d chuckle, every single time I witnessed this delightfully humorous view out my kitchen window. I felt grateful for those splendid little moments of joy that broke up the humdrum of my day, or punctuated whatever stressors I was up against at the time.

I miss the squirrels. I see so very few here in Tennessee, though neighbors and new friends keep assuring me they’re quite abundant in these parts. I’ll believe it when I see it.

I have a low tolerance threshold for Pollyanna people who won’t let ya feel down, sad or uncomfortable, because they’ve dissociated from darker feelings lifelong, and can’t tolerate their own difficult emotions (much less, yours!). But perhaps there are brief moments when we might benefit from shifting our focus a bit, and help ourselves lighten the heavy load we’re carrying.

Keep an eye out for these. They’re easy to miss, when we’re distracted, discouraged and disheartened by this thing we call, “Life.”