It's a MOST beautiful day in the neighborhood.

It's gorgeous outside. It's Sunday afternoon. Perfect conditions for taking a leisurely stroll through my neighborhood to remind myself how great it is. Along the way, I encountered the first spring flowers (that I've noticed). Particularly tulips and poppies. I heart spring.

Several wonderful things happened during this walk. I discovered a hidden little park with a creek. It's only about 5 blocks from my house. If I had known that there was an entire creek that close to my house, with a little park right next to it, I probably would not have spent the last two and a half years thinking that my neighborhood was still too "urban" for me, despite its tree-lined streets. The creek has a bench next to it, and a bridge crossing over it, and trees all around it, and a large spot of green grass, which just happened to, today, have a man and a woman playing a fiddle and a mandolin under the shade of the trees. A bluegrass session! In my neighborhood! There was also a little kiddie play area, with a cute little boy speaking another language to his mom - children who speak foreign languages still amaze me. And that kiddie play area had an enormously long slide that was clearly put together by the community, and not by the city, making it infinitely more loved. And just over that bridge that spans the creek, there's a cafe that I didn't know existed. I'm walking back there tomorrow, because the menu looked that good.

And that's not all - I walked past two kids. As we passed each other, one of them nonchalantly reached out and handed me a card he was holding (which somebody else had clearly given to him and he didn't want). Without thinking anything of it, I took it, said "Thanks!" and as he and his little friend started laughing about 10 steps behind me at how easily they had pawned off this unwanted card to an unsuspecting stranger, I realized that this card actually contained information about $5 movies at a local theater. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is playing on May 21. I will be there.

And to top it all off, along the way I stopped and dropped off an envelope at the post office that represents a long-time-in-the-making decision about my future. And I actually don't feel half-bad about it, which is in stark contrast to the utter turmoil raging through my head for the last several weeks (but don't ask what it is. I'm not ready to talk about it).

Today was a peaceful walk through a neighborhood that I probably - no, positively - have not fully appreciated during the time that I've lived in dear, sweet Berkeley. For the next little while, I'm just going to work on fixing that.