I went out to Ventura yesterday afternoon for my Bikram Yoga class, and discovered that the Saturday afternoon class had been cancelled for the holiday. A picture in the window of a new second-hand store had caught my eye on the way up Oak Street, so I decided to check out the shops.

At “B on Main” I found two things. The first was a little silly – a ceramic glaze rendering of two mermaids. It’s hanging on the wall right now beside my other feminine objects. The others are objects of power, and they needed some lightening up.

And I found this. The store has a number of these messages, many of them about parenting. It reads like a child’s braggadocio. But my response wasn’t that of a parent. It wasn’t remembrance of my sons’ innocent declarations of affection that caused the lump in my throat or the flash of warmth on my skin.

I don’t buy things until I figure out where I’m going to hang them. Walking up and down Main Street, it occurred to me that this should go on the wall by my pillow. That’s kind of prominent, so it’s been working on me overnight. At first I thought that it was a declaration of my love for the world, and then I realized that it was a list of things that I loved. From there, it was only a short step to realizing that the qualities were not a description of my love, but descriptions of the things.

So now I read it:

I love the sky because it is blue enough to protect us from space, but not so blue that the light doesn’t get through..
I love the moon because it is just far enough away to move the ocean tides.
I love the sun for it is just warm enough for life to survive.
I love kites because they are the size for a child to fly.
I love the ocean because sometimes it is shallow enough to swim in, but other times deep enough to keep secrets.
I love trees because they are tall enough to give us shade.

And that is how I love all of you, dear readers. I love you for what you are.