By SUSAN DROMEY HEETER, Joyful Musings
One of my students this week mentioned taking a drink of water at night.
“Night water is the best!” he remarked and I muse joyfully on “night water” – on things that bring us simple joys, on moments that quench our thirst, literally and figuratively.
Today, my sister and I poked into a thrift shop and I found a beautiful vintage Danish modern chair for $15. It is in beautiful condition and to touch the wooden arms is to take a long cool drink of water under a sweltering sun. It is pristine, it is sleek, it is delightful. My night water moment happened at Find It On the First in Dover, one of my favorite venues, one of my ideal locations to quench my thirst for the thrift haunt.
My husband and I also invested in the very first new couch of our married lives today. We’ve been together over twenty five years but survived with couches that were either inherited from relatives or found on Craigslist. Obviously, as indicated from above, I am perfectly fine with vintage – aka used – furniture. But, the couch we purchased, a big fat, hard to get out of sectional is not only night water, it is a great sneeze, a canceled event, a snow day. I cannot wait to make an appointment with its cushions; I’ll show up early.
Night water is also a relief in knowing there are journalists out there covering events, people, politics like InDepthNH.org’s Paula Tracy, Nancy West, Damien Fisher, Garry Rayno and Boston Globe’s Teresa Hanafin. It’s night water to read Heather Cox Richardson’s history reports and insight into all things past and present. It is night water to know that journalists are working to provide facts and insight on many that would like to stay vague and gray, keeping their constituents parched.
Finally, it is night water to pause and stop and be entirely grateful for the warmth of spring and for simply having water to drink. I muse joyfully you’ll find your own night water today, tonight or even tomorrow. It’s out there – in a thrift shop, on a cozy couch, in the democracy of freedom of the press. I muse joyfully your thirst is quenched by something wonderful.
Susan Dromey Heeter is a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards.