100 Paths

It doesn’t take much, really.

Doesn’t take much to find happiness or joy or God in everyday life.

Just caught the daughter’s eyes: she’s watching Keeping up with the Kardashians on her laptop on the sofa, and she looks up at me just as I look up from mine. My eyes are full of love, which of course she immediately announces ‘creepy’. We both laugh, and I add creepily that the blue of her blouse matches the blue of the tumbler cap lying next to her. She rolls her eyes and goes back to Kim and Khloe.

And then I recall yesterday night when we took the dogs for a walk. For the first time, Miyake (our five-year-old female golden retriever) sneaked out of the park with Kalu, the black street mutt who lives in our lane (he has been in love with her ever since we moved here). We spotted them leave through the gate and I rushed behind them, scolding her. She stopped guiltily while Kalu ran away further. Admonishing her like a wayward child, I leashed her and brought her back to the park, her eyes downcast in shame. “The girl has become naughty,” hubby and I agreed. “Badmaash.” The kids went ballistic laughing when I told them about the episode.

And then I look back a few nights ago. It was close to midnight and hubby and I were both sleepy. We usually talk a lot in the dark, or staring up at the ceiling. For a change, that night, we talked facing each other, making eye contact even when drowsy. It was delicious. We laughed and teased each other, everyday squabbles dissipating in knowing gazes. “Small pleasures are such big pleasures for you,” hubby joked tenderly the next morning when I told him I had woken up high.

And then just now, when the daughter studying Sociology shows me her textbook and points at a name: Stolypin. “How can anyone remember a name like that?” she says, adding, “Shouldn’t it be Stoly-Polly?” I laugh out loud: “Hahaha, why on earth should it be Stoly-Polly and not Stolypin???” “Duh,” she responds in her typical teen way of ending a statement with a question mark: “Because it rhymes?”

I am laughing even as I type this.

No, it really doesn’t take much to find God.