Sometimes I am just going along in my life and all of a sudden I start getting a real kick out of the most simple things, like skipping a party to stay home to cook a vegetable stew and clean the house.  I please myself with the different ways I find to change up my garden and rearrange my furniture, and it keeps me loving the space I live in.  I just opened up the living room and suddenly the space inside looks so big and spacious and clean and white.  Outside it seems that everything is in bloom at once, the mulberries, the loquats coming on.  All the colors, the reds and yellows, are brighter, more brilliant than ever before.  It makes me want to sing a song and dance for them. And the fragrances, night blooming jasmine and honeysuckle, smell more heavenly than ever.  I feel drunk on their scent. When I’m in this space, even cooking the simplest of soups becomes an orgy of sensation: sights, smells, flavors.  The crunch of each green bean and red pepper; the crushing of fresh seeds with mortar and pestle,  the happy chop, chop, chopping on the favorite cutting board.  The high flavor of the organic veggies. Sometimes it’s all I can do to stay in my body. I am so glad I get to live this life.