A friend from high school, with whom I hadn’t seen for ten years and only exchanged letters, went to a watercolor painting course with me! I have wanted to try this method for a long time. We went to Mankai Paper and had a great time. And I took home not only a delicately painted tulip and a flower mandala, but also a cake to go. š
I took a ride on a vintage tram! I came across it right in front of our house and it was a nice surprise. Usually, these beauties with wooden interiors are only found in the center of Prague and you have to buy a ticket for them separately, you can’t ride on a tram pass. This one, however, was inaugurating a new section of the line, and I was able to ride back and forth as many times as I wanted, enjoying the way the driver turned the antique crank.
I petted a labrador puppy! 
I walked through the rain of white petals, slowly descending to the ground, which they completely coveredā¦ and it was the perfect moment. I felt like the main character in a movie scene. I slowly walked in a shower of cherry petals on the white festive carpet to meet my friend and I hugged him under the cherry tree.
The smell of spring and water is in the air today. Everything is fresh. A blackbird is singing on the top of the maple tree right in front of our window and the dandelion in a vase is blooming yellow.
Yesterday, while walking in the woods, I noticed new hornbeam leaves for the first time. Beautiful golden green, translucent, fragile. The lindens and maples have put on their leaves, too. The world is beginning to turn green.
I think beech trees have the most beautiful spring leaves. Their young leaves are a stunning color, my favorite shade. I always thought Tolkien wrote LothlĆ³rien based on a beech grove in spring – the white trunks of the beeches and the golden leavesā¦
Dear reader,
when I was younger, I didn’t believe in little joys.
In college, I read The Artistās Way, and there was a chapter about how little joys can help you through difficult times. I didn’t know what to make of it. “When I feel good, I feel GOOD, and when I feel bad, I feel BAD. That’s it”, I thought. My thinking was very black and white back then.
This has begun to change when my therapist gave me four questions to answer every evening.
“What made me happy today?
What have I accomplished today?
What have I learned today?
Who have I helped today?”
It could be anything – nothing was too small. I have been answering these questions for more than a year and it completely changed my thinking.
Since then, looking for small joys helped me through many dark times.
With my boyfriend, we created a ritual for each evening. Before we said goodnight, we told each other three little joys that we experienced during the day. We were doing this for many, many years.
And then we broke up. I started to write my little joys on Facebook to help me through the pain, to remind me the world still has things to make me happy.
And there were more and more of them, and finally, I wanted to write them not only for my friends, but for everyone. This is how this blog was created.
I hope it can make you smile and inspire you to find and create your own small joys.
