happiness

Since a few have asked to see the picture I was talking about yesterday, I decided to dig it out. It was taken pre-digital camera, and I actually haven't physically seen it in a long time, but carried the image around in my head. So here it is...


I know there was nothing exceptional going that day, so I think I always had that energy. By nothing exceptional, I mean something like a birthday or a holiday or something. That said, it was in general an exceptional time in my life.

It's taken in our home... our sailboat. And I'm about 7 months pregnant. We were living on the boat, working on a post-doc and writing a thesis. Waking to the characteristic sound of the port. The clanging of chains, creaking of dock lines.

There was a bath house at the marina that we used... no shower on board and we used the toilet only in dire midnight emergencies. You can imagine how many dire mid-night emergencies a 7 month pregnant woman might have ;) We had no oven or stove and cooked all of our on board meals in a coffee pot. Things like raman noodles and instant oatmeal.

And it was January. Granted, January in the San Francisco Bay isn't too bad, but it can get a tad nippy at times. We had a little portable electric space heater when we were home at night. This was great motivation for me to go hang out on the university campus during the day.

There were pelicans. And in the channel out to the bay, sea lions. And in all this, there I am. Couldn't be happier. In the middle of doing something... who knows what. I turned around and M snapped this photo. Just perfect.