Coop's Corner: Favorite Things

Friday, November 28, 2014

Favorite Things - Update

Favorite things, or with only a slight bit of twist on this Thanksgiving Day, things to be thankful for.....

Updated 11/29

These buttery delights may not top my list but they're right up there; Peg and the kids have been working on these (and many like them) all week and I'm truly the benefactor. Today is our Thanksgiving family time.....these will never see tomorrow.

Last summer while we were sitting around at the Hiawatha BMW Rally, my riding and dear friend David made a declaration, stating that he'd started a list of his favorite things. In past conversations (there have been many) David has made many interesting and thought provoking observations, a couple of which I highlighted at the Iowa Guzzi Rally last year. His very own list had been started and it was obvious to me that David wanted to share them.

It was the follow up that brought me pause.

"So what would be on your list?" he asked.

Feeling sudden (uncomfortable) pressure to prioritize, I had to stop myself, focusing on David's expression to see if he was teasing or genuinely expecting a response. Concerned that I would speak without thinking, I commented that I'd want to think about the difference between Likes and Favorites and that I'd send him mine. The distinction seemed important to me at the time and actually still does as I've thought about it off and on ever since our discussion back there in early June. A few that quickly came to David while sitting there were shared and only a few days later, an email arrived that contained 30-some items that brought great pleasure, joy, contentment.....or some combination of all.

There are a couple items on his list that are quite personal, not to be shared publicly and bring me a boy's smile. Most of his listed items would or could be on most anyone's list, at least in one order or another.

I as of yet haven't formally written mine down since I'm still establishing some highlights; a work in progress I suppose meaning the work won't stop. I have been rearranging some of them over time, lifting some higher which only manages to force others down. Absolutely, definitely not in any meaningful order of prominence, the list will hopefully never be complete but it has been started......

the sight AND aroma of freshly baked bread
the first and last hour of a long motorcycle ride (David's)
early morning walks on the hill with our dogs
looking up to the clouds, no matter when or where.....the flood of endorphines happens everytime
aromas; chocolate, newly mowed hay, fresh coffee, an old hardware store, passing farms while on a ride and detecting their main enterprises, your first love....

In another category completely, family and friends, the time we spend with them the best gifts of all. I hope that all of you had a chance yesterday to enjoy and pause to appreciate those things important in your life.

Turkeys

Yesterday they were on our plates, today they are doing some feasting of their own (Thankful for their lush surroundings??).

8 comments:

TrobairitzNovember 29, 2014 at 9:33 AM
Making the list sounds like a good idea. I never thought about a distinction between things I like and favorite things.

I do believe hubby would have to be at the top of the list. He isn't a thing, but our love is. :-) Don't tell him, it would go straight to his head.

Big hugs to you and your wife during the holidays.
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SonjaMNovember 29, 2014 at 9:51 AM
Coop,I am completely with you on cloud/sky watching and good aromas. I'd like to add a morning ride into the sun rise, the salty smell of the ocean (and the sound of waves crushing), and my hubby's Sunday breakfasts as things that I am grateful for. ;-)
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VStar LadyNovember 29, 2014 at 12:14 PM
Happy Thanksgiving Coop ... it looks like you have a wonderful list started and have started a lot of us thinking.
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AnonymousDecember 7, 2014 at 9:26 AM
.. the baked goodies look like sea shells ... :)
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)