Brer Fly

100 Things in the World I Love

the hour long walk I took with K this morning, during which we saw six beautiful deer (two were very little)
the sound of cicadas on a summer evening
the smell of Gophie’s belly
stacking grocery carts together
chai
making s’mores with my girls
mushrooms
swimming in the river
Cades Cove
being surrounded by mountains
looking for shapes in clouds
insects and learning new things about them with Fallie
making rolls from my grandmother’s recipe that are almost as yummy
lemurs, running sifakas in particular
Hayao Miyazaki movies
Fallie’s collections
the way Finn likes to take care of everyone
Rosamond Wolff Purcell’s photography
the sound of a cat purring
playing with Finn’s hair (Fallie won’t let me)
synchronized fireflies
abandoned buildings
bonfires with K
camping
bottle cap snakes
handmade christmas tree ornaments and listening to my girls’ stories about them as we hang them up every year
Halloween
Ultra Man
drinking bourbon out of a Snapple bottle
cliff jumping
the way it feels after getting my hair trimmed
octopi (not octopuses or octopodes)
photo booths
the exhausted feeling you get after swimming all day long
crows
large front porches
Sweetwater brewery
thunder storms
listening to rain on a metal roof
sleeping naked under quilts
looking at photos of Finn and Fallie with them
the way Finn thinks some childhood photos of me are really her
listening to Fallie talk about the Edge Chronicles
running down sand dunes at Lake Michigan
tree houses
catching and identifying insects with Fallie
hanging out with both of my brothers at the same time (this rarely happens)
the way mushrooms are starting to show up in the woods and letting Fallie examine every single one during a walk
slow quiet mornings when the girls tell me about the dreams they had
baking cookies with my daughters and hearing which ones are their current favorites
taking cookies to our neighbors
Barley, our neighbors’ dog
birthday cake
gin and tonics
collecting tiny things
graham central station ice cream from Brusters
watching my girls make friends easily
watching my girls in school plays and seeing how much fun they have
skeletons
the way Gopher Guts tucks herself in to me as close as she can every night
new shoes
making jewelry
wrapping paper
handmade cards
writing letters
receiving letters but this is rare
snapdragons
irises
that Wreckless Eric song
eating dinner on the deck with my family
seeing deer while eating dinner on the deck
seeing a mama black bear and her two cubs with the girls and K (we were only about 20 feet above them on a cliff)
old, worn out, well loved stuffed animals
the way Fallie wraps her kiki (security blanket) around her ear when she is really tired
the fact that we have a picnic blanket and that we use it often
roasted root vegetables
K’s pizza
our daughters’ freckles and birthmarks
fairy tales
overflowing bookshelves
the Great Smoky Mountains
the niche in a wall of our house that is the perfect size for our stuffed crow and human skull
free museum day
Joseph Cornell
organizing things
cemeteries
making costumes for my daughters
guerrilla art
Finn and Fallie’s very first teacher, Ms. Shelby
the fact that Finn loves the Beatles (because of Ms. Shelby)
the day that the girls quoted The Princess Bride to their drama teacher all through lunch and that the teacher loved it and knew all the words
having K at home with the girls all summer long
watching Dirty Jobs with K and the girls
seeing the girls try to talk to an owl and the look on their faces when that owl hooted back
Wacky World
K’s rule at the little river that he has to say yes if someone asks him to go to the Y
The Brothers K (I did not shorten the name of the book)
watching Firefly, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me and Farscape over again with K
watching the following movies over again: In Bruges, Groundhog Day, True Romance, Stranger Than Fiction and Garden State
Where The Wild Things Are and the way Finn and Fall gnash their terrible teeth and roll their terrible eyes when we read it together