Sweetness

• HAPPY LOVE DAY

• When I wake, the house is still wrapped in silence, the sky outside my window a deep, velvety blue. I creep into the writing room (everyone else refuses to call it a Study). Fajr and meditation before the world stirs, before life presses in—just me, my breath, and the presence of a greater force within and around.

  I kneel on the worn prayer rug, whispering gratitude into the darkness. Another day, another chance to be & write a better story than the one I wrote & lived the day before. I close my eyes, meditating on sweetness—the kind of life that adds honey to the moments and memories of those around me. The story I’m revising has been sitting with me for weeks, growing, shifting, and asking for more. I spend ninety minutes typing feverishly, occasionally staring off into the air as if the wind is my thought partner.

  Then I hear tiny footsteps pattering down the hallway—two sets, light and eager. A smile spreads across my face before the door even opens.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, Daddy!”

  Miles and Zoe burst in, their faces glowing like the sunrise now breaking through the window. They run around the desk, arms outstretched, colliding into my embrace.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, my loves,” I murmur, kissing the tops of their heads.

  Breakfast is quick, filled with giggles and syrupy fingers, and then we are off. The drive to school is its own kind of ritual—singing along to the radio, talking about dreams from the night before. In the backseat, Miles holds a carefully balanced tray of cupcakes, and Zoe clutches a bag of candy, her excitement barely contained.

  “I’m going to make you something sweet at school today,” she declares as we pull into the drop-off lane. “I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you more.”

  As they disappear through the school gate, the sun climbs fully into the grey sky. I sit momentarily, watching the light spill golden over the pavement: a new day, a good day. I smile to myself, already grateful for its sweetness.

• Two blocks away, a guy flips me off because I was daydreaming of sweetness and turned in front of him too slowly.

• Everyone is problematic to a cause.

• Everyone is a hero to a cause.

• Elderberry syrup & ginger tea for what the soft cold may have left.

  With all my heart…Té