Coming home from work, traffic snarled as usual, I'm given plenty of time to look around.  What I see is a cityscape of asphalt and concrete, brilliantly backlit by the setting sun.  A golden, orange shine touches every surface, gleaming gemstones shimmering in the early evening haze.  Golden hour.

Against this shifting magical landscape of fiery obelisks and long purple shadows, a river of cars crawl along at a snail's pace.  Behind the windshield of every vehicle, a long face settled in for the long drive home.

Hours and days do we spend commuting back and forth between our jobs and our familiar homes.  Hours and days do we spend with a long grim face, eyes forward and blank, watching for the red glow of the tail light in front of us or waiting for that green light that tells us to go, go, go.

What thoughts wander through your mind when you find yourself behind the steering wheel making your way through the bleakness to the warm hearth at home?  Are you one of the many whose mind wanders about a gray fog, the only emotion brought on by a sudden change in the light in front of you?  Are you thinking about the troubles that weigh down on your shoulders like a vise?

What short little lives we lead and what time we waste not tasting it and making it more enjoyable.  Take those empty gray hours and fill them with a little bit of that golden sunshine just beyond the hood of your car.  Think about all the good things that have happened to you today or this week.  If you've had a particularly bad time of it lately and nothing happy comes to mind, smile anyhow and enjoy the sensation of living.  The act of breathing, of seeing, of feeling the warm light stroking your skin--those are things not to be missed because they are the essence of living.

If you're the surly type with no sense of romance or imagination and you stomp on snowflakes and mow down dandelions, smile anyhow, 'cause it's infectious and it'll make my day that much better.  And in case you've forgotten how, let me demonstrate.

Now, that's a happy man!

Beach chairs and pool-side service under an early morning sun.  Pretty boys and pretty girls with sun gold skin and starch white shorts at beck and call.  Out the stout iron gate, an air-conditioned bus with high-backed chairs and a mini-bar traipsing around mud houses and salted faces weathered under hard labor and a down-beating sun.  Shiny baubles laid out on a blanket--what's $50 for a bit of polished tin?  It's more than most people make in a week.  Well then, throw in another 50¢ for a photo with the boy with a dirt-streak face and sad dark eyes.  Smile! glittering white teeth beneath mirrored lenses on a red sun-burnt face.  Back to a plush dining room with colored tiles and deep tassled cushions.  Prim waiters with plates of lamb and couscous Americana held high beneath a canvas of starlight flooding through the open roof.  A troop of veiled dancers restless, driven, swaying to the beat of native drums.  Salut! a glass of brandy for my brave companions on this adventure to foreign lands!

The two room hotel we're staying at tonight has two towels for guests.  This was explained to me by Yousef apologetically after I asked for a third twice.  It seems Morocco is famous for it's $50 per sq. foot rugs, not for it's abundance of towels.

Mom used the first one to soak up the water in the shower.  The second, and last towel, became the issue of some debate between Mary and I after some cajoling with my mom about the first.

Cajoling, teasing, joshing.  We make light-hearted fun of people who are different, people who stumble, people who love us and changed our diapers but now look to us for help.  When does teasing become bullying and demoralizing?

Every joke has a grain of truth.  Truth as we see it and truth about ourselves, not necessarily truth as it really is.  We some times conceal exasperation or condescendence with such a joke.  But when a person asks you for help, really needs your help, no matter the size of the task or what you view as the absurdity of the task, it is cruel to make light of it, it is right to just do it.

Thus, the woman who washed my sheets when I peed my bed in junior high shouldn't have to ask me twice for a glass of hot water or put up with a snide remark, even if it's 100 degrees out and the waiter barely understands English.

Tomorrow will be a better day for both of us.

The four basic necessities of life and happiness:

• Health
• Food
• Shelter
• Community

Everything else is just gravy.