Good Day

When your alarm goes off, you question how on earth it can be a good day. But when you finally manage to open your eyes and see sunlight softly glinting on the ceiling, even though it’s 7 am, you think, there might be hope for today. And then you sit up and immediately doubt it.

But when you eat a breakfast of oats ‘n’ honey granola topped with craisins, you think, I’m going to try and let this be a good day.

When you have a very, very, VERY long lab where you had to redo a part of the process and are going to have to book it to make it to chapel on time, you question how good of a day it will be. But when after that lab, you step outside to make it to chapel on time and you smell the wet, crushed leaves, you realize it might not be quite so bad.

And when you get really, really, really good sushi and General Tso’s chicken for lunch (and maybe it was that good because you were ravenous enough to eat bark), you begin to think the stars are singing the background music of your life. And you’re pretty certain it’s a good day. And when you have leftovers for dinner, to boot, you think you might have gotten a good day in spades.

When you get to work and are immediately greeted with, “We’re going to QT!”, you know it’s going to be a good day. Even though it’s already 2:30 in the afternoon. And when you get an ever so tiny but oh, so fulfilling pumpkin spice milkshake at QT, your suspicions of it being a good day are confirmed.

And even though there’s nothing much to do at work, you get to study some for that Biology test tomorrow that’s going to kill your soul, you’re thankful for the extra day before that test takes place. And you’re bored, but it’s better to be bored than frantic, you tell yourself, and remind yourself of the great things that happened today.

Maybe the sponsor staying in your room is nice and friendly and likes doTERRA as much as you do and only adds to the layers of smells in your room (Lavendar and Oregano, anyone?), you remind yourself that not even High School Festival can get the best of God in giving me a good day.

With the promise of Starbucks and those Chinese leftovers looming on the horizon, you’re excited that it will still be a good day. But with the uncertainties of much homework, and busy weekend, and possibly not finishing a friend’s present in time, you forget that it’s been a good day. So you choose to write a blog post to concretely remind yourself that, it has, in fact, been a good day.

Absolutely Lovely Day

It was a good day. Not just: nothing atrocious happened. And not: won the lottery, shook hands with the president, walked on the moon kind of amazing happened.
It was just a solidly good day. And I am not used to Wednesdays being good days.

I found that I actually like Hopkins in British Literature. Will he make your brain melt out your ear? Yes. But does he do an admirable, whimsical and absolutely captivating job of trying to…package the “instress” into a small bundle of epiphany for you and I to enjoy? Yes. He loved nature, because nature has a way of unexpectedly and beautifully demonstrating part of God to us, in small explosions of grandeur. These explosions cause us to, for just a moment, understand God just a bit better, basically glimpse Him in His true glory and majesty. That is “instress”. The momentary bundle of joy and comprehension that never quite lasts in the comprehension, but leaves a residual awe over the rapture of the moment.

All of my classes were interesting, went smoothly, and I was alert all day (which was a miracle unto itself).

I got to practice with a small ensemble for my church’s Christmas program. I miss working with a choir in a school setting, and it was a lovely refresher.

I went on a 30 minute (very) brisk walk and called home to my mother. It was refreshing and rejuvenating in every way.

There was fog all day today. Fog has a way of making even the most drab and ordinary things romantic. It has an air of mystery, seclusion, intrigue, and the unknown. Anything and anyone is possible on a foggy day.

I listened to the soundtrack for the musical Jane Eyre. Not only is it one of my favorite stories (for reasons that must be detailed elsewhere), it is perfectly captured in music. Every emotional high and low over the circumstances, thoughts and convictions of the characters is better expressed in music than it will ever be in film. Since Jane Eyre is largely an internal story, a story of personal wrestlings, confusion, strife, and reconciliation, there is often no action for the eye to see. But it should be felt. Music is the language of the soul that probably most perfectly capture the soar and plunge, the complexity and elasticity of emotion.

I had sushi, chicken noodle soup and a brownie for dinner, in my room. All of those things bring me much joy. Yes, I am a queer loner who has no gustatorial discernment.

And I’m going to bed early. What could be better than that?