Sunday, September 1, 2024: A Small Moment of Delight

Mid-day Lunch!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.

In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid.

Daily Diary, Day 1460:

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, when I came up with the idea of alternating my Sunday TaDa! List posts with posts about something in my life that had recently made me smile or feel particularly content, what had prompted the idea was the incredible sense of well-being I noticed feeling around one in the afternoon. I was wealking from the kitchen, where I had just spent my usual half hour methodically making my salad for lunch, and I was heading for my rocking chair, where I would eat that salad. As the sense of well-being swept over me, I thought about how often I felt that way at that time of day, even though I was simply doing something that I do almost every day of the week.

From that thought came this post, but I have struggled with what to call these posts. What makes me happy? My moment of joy? My favorite thing?

For the past two years, in the month leading up to the winter holidays, I do a My Favorite Things list, so my initial thought was to call it that. But the word favorite—implies something I like best, and that really didn’t fit with what I wanted to talk about in these posts. And since I am generally a happy person, using this word didn’t fit. And joy felt a little to grand a word because the kind of moments I wanted to share are often going to be tiny moments, for example when I notice a bird behaving in an amusing way, or run across a silly lawn ornament, or have read a passage in a book that particularly delights me. And with that thought, came my subtitle, which is going to be: A Small Moment of Delight

So, back to that moment of delight I felt yesterday and what caused it.

On the surface, my initial thought was that it was the salad that was giving me such a good feeling. In fact, the salad I make for lunch most every day, was actually the second Favorite Thing I listed when I did a series of posts leading up to Christmas of 2022. And if you want to know why this salad is so important to me, you might want to go back and read that post.

However, what I realized was it was more than the salad. In fact, I decided that it was actually the time of day. Yes, I was looking forward to the salad, and I had enjoyed listening to the current audiobook I am listening to as I made that salad. But even those times when I don’t have my salad, or haven’t been listening to an audiobook, I still often notice a sort of uplift of my spirits and one of the things that contributes to this feeling, is that by that time of day (I generally eat at 1 pm) I have completed the majority of the various tasks on my to-do list.

For example, usually by that time, I have completed my cleaning chores, finished my two walks, posted this newsletter, and maybe even had one of my scheduled phone calls. What this means is that I can generally look forward to getting in some work in the afternoon, even if I have another phone calls scheduled.

In addition, I suspect that one thing that contributes to my sense of over all well-being is also alert and basically pain free I feel at that time of day. The alert ness is in part because I have had the majority of my daily four cups of caffeinated tea, but mid-day appears to be the sweet spot in terms of my general aches and pains. I no longer am feeling the stiffness I wake up with, but I have not yet over-worked my hands yet or started to get tired, which is generally true by dinner time.

But finally, what contributes to this sense of well-being is that this is the one hour or hour and a half that I protect myself from any outside stimulation (emails, phone calls, items on my to-do list that are calling to me. And my husband is up taking his nap, so I am basically all alone.

From the moment I start on my salad, I will not look at my phone or take calls. Instead, I listen to my audiobook, then once I start to eat, I turn on the TV to watch a half-hour (or sometimes even a whole 40 minutes!) of a show on the HGTV channel, because I have found this the best way to quiet my busy mind.

Some people do cross-word puzzles, or knit, to get their busy mind to stop…I watch something like House Hunters or Good Bones or Home Town. The plots are easy to follow, and there is always a happy ending. And when I am done carefully chewing my salad, and the show is over, I get to eat the first of my dark chocolate pieces for the day, which made my yearly Favorite Things lists for both 2022 and 2023!

In short, there were excellent reasons why I smiled with a general sense of delight as I walked over to turn on the TV, and eat my very excellent salad.

And I wondered if any of you have a specific time of day you particularly enjoy?

If you enjoy my daily posts and would like to subscribe for free or become a patron (where you will get the pleasure of giving me the resources to spend more time writing and less time marketing) click the little button below. In addition, please do click on the heart so I know you’ve been to visit and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments! Thanks!