by Essie Halberstam

Created on: June 01, 2009

A fortune cookie slip once was printed "Life is the greatest bargain. You get it for free." It so wholly captured me that I taped it to the side of my sliding wooden lattice closet door. But in life, anyone can step outdoors and see the sky. Anyone can watch the colors change at sunrise and sunset. Anyone listening outside cities can hear the twitters, tweeps, chirps and warbles of birds we must search to see. Everything in nature can be explored.

For settling in the chest, one can walk a beach hearing and feeling high tide, or climb down a riverbank and sit on a boulder hearing the water rushing over rocks on a downgrade. Just prior to dawn, opening your nearest window just a crack gives you the hundreds of birds greeting another day. Strolling through arts festivals fills your eyes with creative endeavors. Barefoot walking through grass connects you profoundly back with your humanity. Taking your time when passing flowers, leaning in to see their detail is as delicious as a walk outdoors at midnight to throw your head back and amaze yourself with the stars an moon.

Free is a stroll down the glass windowed hall of a hospital newborn wing. Rounding a long, slow curve of a mountain drive shows you the unfolding of yet another panorama of natural beauty that can fill you with gratitude. Finding stunning designs on fallen Autumn leaves can invite you to display them in a dish at home. Delight coming from someone's eyes who is smiling into yours, a floated peony in full blossom on a dining room table in a cut glass bowl...such evidence of the human love of beauty establishes a warm, comfortable sense of community.

Taking a sketch pad to a picnic table at a park and trying your hand at drawing something you see is an adventure. Finding a comfortable, somewhat isolated place for writing outdoors can bring up the depths of your perspective. Lying in a chaise with closed eyes, feeling the sun warm you for just those fifteen minutes can remind you of silly, happy childhood memories. A book from the library opened in comfort before you fall asleep can dispel personal solution-seeking that so often accompanies the prelude to sleep. The self-nurturing of a fragrant bath, the arms of a child around your neck, goats gamboling, kittens playing, all require nothing but attention.

Life is the greatest bargain. You get it for free.

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