I’m dancing in the kitchen. It’s pouring out. Guitarra Portuguesa trickles out from the speakers. I’m dancing in the kitchen.

I want to capture this moment. The down pour, the way it hits my skylight in the kitchen. The one that I’m dancing in.

Coffee’s doing its thing dripping rhythmically into a base of freshly poured oak milk (pour over). The kitchen feels bigger than it already is. It’s open, the apartment; it’s big, the space; I feel like dancing.

Swaying, maybe that’s the more accurate word to describe it. Although, do you call it swaying when it involves lifting oneself up – surprisingly without effort – onto tippy toes. With an ease, a spring that conjures up – or rather, manifests – joy.

The simplest kind of joy, too. Having had a lovely call with mom and dad yesterday, that kind of simple joy. The no-longer-so-new apartment feels delightfully big and open, and the floor is freshly roomba’d, that kind of joy.

It’s a Sunday. It’s raining. I have no plans.

And all that matters, as I feel right now, comes down to: health, and joy.

t-51

I don’t think I had realized how much it would mean to me to have a renewed relationship with mom and dad. What I’ve longed for for the longest time, and at points didn’t even think I’d be able to ever arrive at – this level of sense of closeness, and a genuinely lightness in my heart; the kind that I had witnessed some friends to have with their parents but never mine… not in my teenage years, not in my twenties, and grateful that now yes, in my thirties. Not taking it for granted, not assuming it will just be the new state without effort to maintain, or better yet – foster and let grow. Nevertheless, it simply fills my heart with joy, a kind I’ve not yet experienced. It brings this level of content-ness I’ve never even felt with a loving partner. As it turns out, it is far more important to me to have this comfort with my parents than I ever thought I would have cared; and yes, a partner to share this rainy day would be lovely, but starting from the root – this new foundation upon which I can continue to build my relationship with my parents, in this moment, on this day, for this week this month this year so far, has proven to mean, a lot. A lot.