While my personal concept of heaven doesn’t include regrets, a former writing assignment required thoughts on what I’ll miss when I’m gone. So, other than the people I love (and books)…here’s a sampling:

…the amazement I feel when the whole orchestra gets to the end of the piece at the same time…baseball radio…West Side Story…trees (but I think they’ll be in the hereafter with the dogs)…the color topaz… old world French wine…Europe (I miss it now)…the prospect of becoming famous…faith (do I take it with me?)…logs popping in the fireplace…comedy… appreciating that I’ve loved the same man for a long time…taking the tags off new clothes…feeling well after being sick…making someone else happy…noticing the magic in the seemingly ordinary…

Another assignment was to recall ten smells I remember:

…pencils (that lovely woodsy scent experienced while biting through the yellow paint during a math test)…gasoline (rolling down the backseat window to breathe in deeply at Morelli’s Shell station as a child)…sweet peas (growing up the garage wall)…cucumber salad…wild chamomile while horseback riding…the back of my children’s necks when they were little…wet dogs…canvas tents in the sun…water…

I love lists so would love followers to send me some of their favorites for inclusion in future posts.