Today after a Skagit County French Circle gathering, back home I did a few things in the garden: planted some jalapenos in containers that I put in a sunny area. -My husband is fond of those pimientos-I also planted some eggplants on that very sunny spot at the back of the trailer. The summer veggie patch on the slope of the dyke is getting crowded anyway. Then I weeded, and got tired, that good kind of tiredness from working outdoors, and decided to sit down under the arbor and have munchies. Then though the sun was warm, the breeze was really cool, so we went back down on the boat.
These are the moments I enjoy most, the simple pleasures of life. I've had so many of them, and if it were just for that, I consider that those alone make life worth living.
Yesterday as I was sitting on a bench by the channel in La Conner with a friend I enjoyed one of those: just watching the water, boats and birds, and having fun chat.
I remember back in Tunisia, one of those I appreciated was siesta time. As a teenager, and then later on in my life as well, I was among the "shwaatan el qaila", that is, the devils of the siesta, which means that contrarily to most people I rarely slept in the afternoon. And I am still a chitaan el qaila. The amazing thing is when I do have a siesta, I really enjoy it and think I should try and have it more often. It is so restorative, and the other reason why I do enjoy it, is that it also allows a space for daydreaming.
However, in those days, in Tunisia, when everybody else was asleep in the torrid, stifling, unforgiving afternoon heat, when I was not at the beach with my cousins or friends, I'd be in the veranda with my aunt Nabiha, who'd make green mint tea -the most refreshing drink when it's hot- and we'd sit on the cooling tile floor of the veranda, overlooking the mediterranean, and eat dried pumkin seeds - qlub in arabic-, and chat, chat, yakking a storm and smoking cigarettes.
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