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All along I have been discovering all these necessities of life which are apparently great secrets, since no one ever talks about them. I don't think many people know. This week I have been trying to collaborate a list of them, because properly organizing makes everything sure.
 
One of them is stillness. Sunshine. Great windows that show you birds and clouds and leaves bouncing in the winds. Hammocks. Taking walks barefoot. Taking walks at all. Breakfast, of course. Having a pond to swim in. 

I don't even know how to swim, but that was the great bit of last summer. There's this pond a six minute walk to the East through the woods when there isn't any snow, and during most of summer it was just a shade on this side of Too Chilly to Be Borne, but it is always surprisingly clear, unless there's someone kicking up the mud. We'd go and float about or stand in it until we were just too cold, and then sit on the one rock, which isn't really big enough for drying off. We discovered certain exquisite shafts of sunlight and two quarrelsome squirrels and one kindly one. We often combined our dips in the pond with picnics, on our own Box Hill. We call it that, because it looks a bit like it, although it's entirely pleasant and never unbearably hot. Fresh bread, pounds of butter, a nice bit of crumbly cheese, iced water, and you have the best bit of life you ever will. Especially if you can manage to bring some just right peaches. 

There is much, much more to go on the list of Obvious, Unknown Necessities, but for now, I can only think of about every kind of food and milk glass. Sometimes I confuse my love for life and my love for milk glass. They are easily mixed up, both being so strong, the objects both  magnificent. And then there is Time. I think there are others, but time is what makes them all lovely. Oh, and books! Everything is something I missed before we came out here, or if I had it, I didn't have the time or the heart or the eyes to take delight in it. But here we live slowly, with grace, with joy, with deep love and always expecting to land upon some new island of beauty.