krista on "one simple joy": pillowcases and cupcakes.

it finally rained today. as though the sky was holding back tears watching a romantic comedy on a first date and lost the battle. either nerves or adrenaline or lack of self-consciousness. whatever. there they are, lulling me back to sleep, soft as fingertips on my windowpanes.

she didn't feel lulled. no, the tapping on the window was more like a siren's call. a lover, a promise, adrenaline or whatever. she was up and she is not yet two. that means i am up as well. alicia asked me to write about simple joy. and i found myself full of complications. every fiber of each idea wrung dry and left wrinkled and stained on the counter.

i seem to have left the simple on the pillowcase this morning. the joy somewhere else entirely. in the kitchen, perhaps? in the cabinet where i store the cupcake liners? i would imagine joy would be comfortable there. regardless,

i haven't found her yet.

and then.

i downloaded some pictures off my camera last week. from a late morning walk with the almost two year old. she in her stroller, me wrapped in ira glass' voice. i snap pictures sometimes that i forget taking. do you ever do that? do you ever come home and download them onto your computer without even looking at them? go open your pictures folder right now. (or iphoto for you mac users, i used to be you. i miss being you. le sigh.)

did you just find yourself lost back in a memory you don't remember making? captured. reigned in like butterflies in nets, except without the somewhat barbaric finality of wings pinned to felt.

i found my wings this morning. in the skeleton of my computer. just waiting for me to set them free.
so simple.
so complex.

i think maybe i'll break out those cupcake liners today. bake the joy out of them so that the house smells like it all afternoon.

bring the pillows into the living room and dance on them with socks.
simple joy scattered all over the furniture and the floor and the walls.

--krista knott, of my life as i see it (and mother to the most adorable almost two year old)

*photographs from krista