Sometimes when we feel very small we go back to things that made us feel safe, or the little child in us cries out to be comforted.

I don’t have a dolly anymore but I do have a tiny girl pug in my lap and I got a small mug of organic milk. I am not really a milk drinker, you know, to just sit around and have a glass of milk, I have it in my lattes, but tonight after a very long day and finishing up some very frustrating web work that made me want to bang my head against the wall I felt like curling up in a little ball. I got up and went into the kitchen and Delilah, startled that I got up and put her down, trotted after me and stared up at me.

“I don’t know what I want Li-Li,” I said looking down at her.

I shoved things around in cabinets, did that standing-in-front-of-the-fridge-with-the-door-open business, when you fervently hope that something fabulous will appear but it’s just leftovers from dinner tonight, some fruit and vegetables, sigh…

And then I spotted the milk, and like some little girl dragging her dolly behind her I poured a small mug of milk, scooped Delilah up and we came back so I could do my post.

It’s thrilling isn’t it? I feel sure you are on the edge of your seat.

Sometimes that’s what being mindful is, just being with your life, the not-much-going-on nights, the lulls in the day when we can kind of drift off and let our mind wander. I decided to sit here with this glass of milk, feel how cold and silky it feels in my mouth. And then the thoughts go running through my head, “But nobody I know drinks real milk anymore and people say it’s bad for you, and…”

Well, I’m going to have my milk in peace. I am sitting here feeling good about myself, tired, but kind of pleasantly happy. It’s such a nice thing to be happy. I have been so angsty and depressed and screwy headed for so much of my life that to sit here at 1:15 a.m. with a tiny girl burrowed into my lap, her soft fur and warm body snuggled against my bare skin, I just want to sit here and feel it.

I’m not likely to be chosen for the commercial with milk on my upper lip but I can sit here and just smile and think of the days when I did play with my dollies and yes have little tea parties. It’s nice to have lovely memories to hold onto when so many of your early memories were of unpleasant things. I look for the good memories. I want to build on those.

I had a Tiny Tears doll. I loved her. You gave her a bottle and she wet her diapers, for real. And I had a doll I just adored called “Poor Pitiful Pearl.” I don’t know why some company made a doll with that name for a little child but I believe it predisposed me to always pick the runt of the litter or some little creature with something wrong with it. Give me a whole litter of champion bloodline puppies and I’d be looking for the Poor Pitiful Pearl in the group.

I had a Chatty Cathy doll and Oh! I just remembered the doll I was greatly enamored of. Her name was Patty Playpal and she was about 3 feet tall, or so it seems when I think about it. Life-sized for a little girl. My dolls and my dog, those were my friends. I was a frightened little girl and I clung to the things that made me feel safe. I remember a glass of milk as being comforting. I had Barbies like all the other girls but when I think back to dolls that I love it’s the ones that I mentioned here that I think of.

Sometimes being mindful is just sitting with tender memories, and holding them close, and rocking your wee pug in your arms, and being so grateful that you are finally safe, and to feel how sweet that feels, well, it was something I hadn’t imagined feeling.

It’s nice to just kind of toodle along writing nice little things and not feeling like you have to go all deep, or have Big Thoughts. Tonight I’m just a woman feeling like a little girl and imagining a tea party with her dollies while snuggling her tiny pug in her arms.

And that’s okay, it’s just fine, and I am grateful for this moment. In this very moment I feel blessed, I feel serene. I feel soft and gentle. I feel love, just kind of a soft little thing to lean into.

I think I will stop now. I will pick up my wee girl and put my empty cup away, and get the little boys up who are asleep in their beds all around me and the little boys and tiny girl and I will head to bed. I guess my dollies are in dollie heaven. I hope they are having a tea party.