What makes you feel alive?

Since death visited my house two weeks ago, I have been thinking about this question. I think it is the simple things in life that make you feel alive. I believe that we sometimes get caught up in the struggles of life, and the politics of despair, rather than the joys of life and the politics of hope.

For the first time in two weeks, I feel very peaceful today, and I think I can answer this question with a more accurate response.

The ocean. Listening to the waves, feeling the sand beneath my feet, the breeze blowing my hair back, smelling the salt spray... and those waves. Endless depths of beauty and majesty. They are beautiful beyond words.

Reading a good book. Letting myself dive beneath its pages, getting swept away in the what-ifs. Getting to know the people in the book, so much that I cry when they cry, laugh when they laugh, I feel that I know them, and I feel let-down when the book ends as I'm brought back to the mundane, the bland, as compared with that level of letting my mind go.

Puppies, kittens, I love cuddling them, feeling the cats purr, the dogs lick my feet or my hands or under my chin. I love pressing my hands to them and feeling their breaths being taken.

Young life. With the two young children visiting us, my grandson and his young cousin, I see something about their endless, amazed, curious wonder. Taking things in wit an innocence unmarred by cynicism.pain or heartache, or age. Something about letting the little ones, whether or animal or human, snuggle into you. Being able to hold them, play with them.

Music.It runs in my veins. I'd be lost without it. I thank God every day that my hearing loss isn't such that I'll just go deaf one day. Music expresses what I cannot, allows me to get lost in it, gives me comfort or strength, or joy. It expresses even those dark, angry or aggrieved emotions that lack words. It's beautiful. Simple, intricate, amazing, soothing.

Writing. Often, my soul is opened when I write, when words that require me to think how I want them to sound, fail me. I believe that many people don't understand that writing is to let go and say what's on my heart. It's as if when I write, I can speak more openly, without fear of how I'll be perceived or judged or misunderstood. I can organise my thoughts in ways speaking does not allow. Writing gives me a freedom and a creativity, and I feel alive when I write because it's speaking the essence of who I am, not who I want others to think I am.

What makes you feel alive?