I absolutely adore sunlight. Don’t get me wrong: I also love rainy, foggy, and cool wet days. Not sleet, so much, or ice (especially on roads!). But the sunlight — it make me want to stretch out like a lizard on a flat rock and just bask…

It’s no wonder, then, that to have a ‘sunny’ disposition is a compliment. No one made a song called ‘You are my thunderstorm,’ even in droughts…

When I was a college student, my two old ladies — Grandma & Aunt Bonnie, who lived together only a few blocks from my dorm & later college apartments — used to call me their sunshine. “Here comes our sunshine!” Aunt Bonnie would say when I came over (practically daily!). I loved them dearly; they were my lifeline while my parents lived overseas. I would sit in the tiny living room, on the scratchy horsehair sofa, and feel as though the room was full of sunshine. Not mine, but theirs ~

Something there is about love: it warms almost physically, like the late  fall sun on the deck this afternoon. I’m thinking that’s what it means to have a sunny disposition ~ to offer love easily, to all of those we meet. That kind of accepting, joyful love relaxes us the same way the September light leaves me drowsy & happy.

I’d like to believe that Grandma & Aunt Bonnie could feel the heat of my love for them, as I felt warmed and comforted by theirs. I’d like to believe that I brought them as much happiness as they did me. But somehow, the love we take seems always more than what we feel we make…