What is value? In the art world value is a degree in lightness or darkness of color. But the value I'm talking about is relative worth, merit or importance. In other words value is when something is important to you, as well as how important it is. Value can be found in material objects, but can also be found in people, places, and moments. Your best friend might have more value to you than that bratty little kid that lives down the street.
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Pushing back off of the floor I slide with my chair and start walking straight for the door. I grab the moss green iPod nano chromatic and the book on which it lay. Shutting the door behind me, I flinch as the crash rocks the house. I open the door a crack rolling my eyes at the mess before me. Closing the door once more, gentler this time, I make my way to the living room. I pass the love seat and take my spot at the corner of the couch, cross my legs, sighing contently. I pick up the iPod frowning at the tangle of wires that's supposed to be my ear phones. After what seems like an hour of detangling I finally place the ear phones into my ears. I pick up the iPod and circle through the songs. Once a decent one pops up I press play, placing it into my pocket in one swift movement. Nodding my head to the beat I open the book that has been lying ready on my lap. Carefully finding the page I left off that is marked by a dog eared corner, flattening it out perfectly so that it looks like there never was a crease. I jump right back into the plot of the story.
The sound of my voice breaks the perfect silence of the night. Claire shushes me and I bring my laugh down to a giggle. She smiles and we both look out over the deck onto the lake, the moon reflected in the calm water of Lake Whinnapasaukee. The call of an owl can be heard and we turn towards the noise hoping to catch a glimpse of this wise bird. I shiver and nod to Claire who agrees it's time to head down to our little sanctuary. Smiling and laughing we make our way past my grandparents watching a movie before bed. We descend the stairs to the basement, which also serves as our apartment for the two weeks out of the year we spend up here. We move into the living area and sit down on the separate couches we use for beds. Grabbing three separate quilts I wrap them around myself. Claire laughs once and says, "You look like a cocoon." I look down and smile, "Yup!" She slides into her sleeping bag and I toss her the movie to put in. She groans but leaves the warmth to put the disk into the DVD player. I grab the remote and press play. We both lay awake until around eleven at night where we shut off the T.V. and turn off the lights. The night is far from over but we have to keep up appearances like we're asleep. We decide to play scattegories tonight. So I pick the category of colors and she picks the letter M. I pick a song and start it. We write down as many colors that start with M that we can think of and when the song ends we put our pencils down. Reading off our answers we each earned two points and it continues in this fashion using different categories and colors. In the end sadly Claire wins by two points. By now both tired we lay down and chat for a while. She is asleep first and I am assured of that by the gentle snoring coming from her side of the room. I smile as I drift off to sleep awaiting the joys to come the next day.
Those are two examples of things that have value to me. My iPod and books and one night in New Hampshire with my friend Claire both the moment and the person have value. All four things help me relax. My iPod and books block out the outside world so that I can feel something different, be someone different, and live their life. My summers in New Hampshire help me escape from the world but in a different way, I am still me but I don't need to worry about chores and schoolwork whereas Claire is one of my best friends we always have a great time and I treasure her company. I just get to have fun with a friend. I treasure this moment because it was one where I was truly happy. We both were. The instance with my iPod happens almost every night. I go through books faster than anyone of my friends. They think I'm weird because I enjoy sitting there in the quiet but it's peaceful and calming to me. These things I treasure, I bet you have some too.
