Small bright things

A tangerine on a blue plate. The hinge on the kitchen window finally working. A song I had forgotten coming on in a café where I had not expected to be moved. The cashier laughing at something the cashier next to her had said. A child on the bus explaining the rules of an invented game to a patient grandfather.

I used to think I had to earn the right to notice these. I used to think there was a more serious life I was failing to live, and that paying attention to small bright things was a kind of consolation prize.

I was wrong. I am still wrong sometimes. I forget for whole weeks and then a tangerine on a blue plate reminds me, and I sit down on the kitchen floor for no reason, and I am embarrassed and grateful in roughly equal measures, and it counts. It counts as much as anything.