Driftwood Conversations

Simple Pleasures

I woke with the words “Simple Pleasures.” I don’t know where they came from or what initiated the thought, but I was opening my eyes to a translucent world, one glittering with possibility.

I saw the vast expanse of desert floor outside the windows. I reached out and touched my partner, connecting in a quiet moment. I said hello to the quail and watched the playful clouds line up and dance in the sky.

The male and female roadrunners came to the door, chirping and squawking for food. I know I shouldn’t feed them, but they arrived last week so determined and demanding. I wondered if they had been fed before. How could they have known to come to me? Now they follow me around the property.

We converse. I give them a whole story about myself and how happy I am to see them. They stop, look at me by turning their heads to the side, and continue their small movements to follow me around. They seem to listen to my chatter, even if they don’t understand. It’s pure joy to be so connected to wild birds. To be in community with the earth.

It’s a joy to learn how small a part we actually play on this planet. Our plans are dust that floats in the air, but we always have a choice to pay attention to that which gives us pleasure.

There is pleasure in awaiting whatever the day will bring. Even not knowing brings me pleasure. The aches and pains of aging have their own quiet gift, reminding me that I am alive and that this day is bright with possibilities.

I once read that attention is a form of love. But what we pay attention to is a choice. We always have a choice. Not because the world becomes easier, but because we recognize the life that is already happening.

Where do I want to place my attention?

I haven’t always been this way. There have been many mornings, evenings, days when there wasn’t any pleasure at all. I was always trying to get there, and it wasn’t happening. I don’t know how I turned it around. I was trying to get somewhere by trying to reach pleasure, peace, and understanding.

Now the pleasure comes from noticing what is already there.

There is the pleasure of the unknown. In what the day will look like, how it will unfold.

There is pleasure in:

The desert floor.
The warmth of another body.
Quail and clouds drifting through the morning.
Two assertive roadrunners who’ve decided I’m part of their world.

I make plans to go to the farmers’ market and the store. I think about driving to the park. I have work to do, but it is my time, and I can shape it however I want. It’s one of those days when I don’t have to clean the rental or produce anything. I haven’t had this luxury in a while.

And right now, I am experiencing a form of belonging.

Not belonging through ownership or identity, but through participation.

I am not observing the desert.

I am part of its morning ritual.

I don’t know how I turned it around. But transformation rarely happens through a single decision. It happens slowly through experience, heartbreak, aging, attention, and grace. One day, you notice that the way you see the world has shifted.

The pleasure is no longer something you chase.

It is something you notice.

There is relief in realizing I don’t have to do everything. I don’t have to save the world or prove that I am needed. There is a gift in simply being. Listening to the sound of the wind. Listening to the quiet. Quiet in the desert is different from quiet anywhere else. The silence holds space for the wind, the birds, the shifting light.

When we step out of the center of the universe, the world becomes larger and more beautiful. And maybe that is all simple pleasures really are. Just the quiet recognition that we are already inside them.