A colleague turned to me and said some days I take so much pleasure in going for a walk and saying nothing much at all. I just say, look there is a flower...Look there is a bird. I take pleasure in buying bread.

She shared a poem about the ordinary pleasure of buying bread. Not white sourdough necessarily! Just bread. Here is the poem

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
You must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth,
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness,
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
You must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
By the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was
someone who journeyed‎ through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing,
You must wake up with sorrow,
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth,
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises it's head
From the crowd of the world to say‎
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend

Thank you to Angela M for introducing me to this poem