Tonight I feel like I haven't experienced so many of these things in such a long time. I miss feeling like myself. I miss the joy and innocence of these things, the simplicity; I wonder where they have gone. And how I can get them back.

• unsolicited correspondence from dear old friends - trains and bikers and mispronouncers of spanish and people with ears and cartoonists. sometimes you make me grin nine smile lines and sometimes I cry out of love.
• being won over
• certain scents
• cozy weary travelers
• giggling gleefully as I shirk work
• running farther than I've ever run before
• the part where I get to eat the shot bloks
• the chocolate bar perpetually inhabiting my second desk drawer on the right
• feelin skinny
• laughing together
• playing music. not on the stereo. really playing it.
• sharing bread fresh out of the oven
• encores
• making allusions that no one gets
• making allusions that someone gets
• wearing socks with birkenstocks
• sitting around talking to friends, nowhere else to be
• stars reflected in black lakes
• green-collar jobs
• mountaintops that have not been removed
• coffee and books, together forever at mother fool's
• uhh... adoration
• a runner's high and then a beer
• red brick and green wood
• abandoned turn-of-the-century factories
• train tracks that still have trains running on them
• candlelight
• long bike rides in the country
• getting letters in the mail
• bananas and peanut butter
• making eye contact with performers on stage
• typing
• conversations about strange and silly things you think and do that result in the discovery that you aren't the only one who thinks and does them.
• silent breakfasts
• planning out a running route
• dreams about making friends with baby monkeys
• hot black tea
• sun through maple leaves
• running
• my birthday
• my bike
• listening to loud music and talking about it
• expensive red wine
• chocolate chip cookie dough
• re-reading harry potter books
• screaming at concerts
• the texas two-step
• chord suspensions (and resolutions)
• lunchboxes
• flowers on black backgrounds
• encouragement
• big parks with lots of trails
• making zweibach and feeling connected to my ancestors
• sunny days
• running in the rain
• learning new words in foreign languages
• doing my laundry
• keeping paper mementos in a box
• running into friends unexpectedly
• discovering music I love
• falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow
• my dog
• cooking for other people
• sherman alexie's writing
• horseback riding through the woods
• getting letters from friends far away
• feeling connected to a community
• lying on the floor with my feet on the couch
• lord of the rings soundtracks
• cross country meets
• early misty fall mornings
• late summer nights
• fireflies
• singing along with a guitar
• "lauren's lullaby" by tin hat trio
• rolling ball pens
• turning handwritten pages
• dark chocolate and dried cherries
• jeans that fit
• trees
• long bus rides through the countryside to get somewhere good
• the simple hunk-of-bread, hunk-of-cheese lunch
• color
• feeling god's presence
• waking up under white sheets after the first snow
• cereal at night
• the smell of beer and cigarettes (strange I know)
• singing hymns with goshen friends
• table-hopping
• starting out on road trips early in the morning when the world is full of opportunity and the air is full of road trip music
• itineraries
• prs
• britishness as expressed in mrs. weasley's kitchen
• a good food documentary
• matriarchs
• when I don't have to wash my face before bed because I already did!
• lips that curl
• new socks
• urban chickens
• confidence (mine and yours)
• banding together
• the blues
• the daily show
• david kempf saying "buck up."
• eating breakfast outside
• surprise visits by dear friends
• a good belly laugh
• matty plummer's chai
• dress shopping with my mother, of all people
• music so complex you find something new in it every time you listen
• abby becker's blintzes
• hanging with the pack
• passing the pack
• a good apple
• reading this list