Window’s open today. The kind of warm where you almost forget you wanted the coffee until you’ve already poured it, and then you remember — oh, right, I love this. I’m a hot-coffee-in-summer person, unrepentantly. I just take it a little differently now that the heavy scarves are tucked away and the silky ones are out. Black, mostly. Sometimes a real cappuccino — the small ceremonial kind, not the bucket-sized winter version. A proper little cup with a proper little hat of foam. Six sips of joy.
I was scrolling, half-paying-attention, and I caught one of those rich-people-doing-things videos — you know the kind. Someone was showing off a yacht, which would be fine — I love the idea of a yacht. Classic summer. White sails on blue water. A captain’s hat. Sure. Except this yacht had another yacht inside it. And then that one had a helicopter on it. And then there was a whole separate boat following them around just to carry the toys. Yacht inside a yacht inside a yacht. A whole nesting doll situation.
I just sort of… tilted my head at it.
Not in a mean way. More like — really? That’s what you came up with? You had all the ocean, and you built a Russian doll?
A while back I came across a phrase that’s been rattling around in my head ever since. Noblesse oblige. It’s French, it’s old, and it basically means: when life has been generous with you, you owe a little of that generosity back. The fancier the gift, the bigger the thank-you note. I love that. I think about it every time one of these videos floats by.
Because here’s the thing I keep coming back to. If I had all the money in the world — like, all of it, the kind where you stop counting and just sort of float — I’m pretty sure I’d have way better hobbies than most rich people seem to have.
I’d want every porch on my street to have a pitcher on it. I’d want every garden in town to be embarrassing — too many tomatoes, too much basil, “please, take some, I’m begging you” levels of abundance. I’d want the neighborhood kids to know which house has the popsicles. I’d want there to be a standing tradition where somebody’s grandma calls to say there’s leftover potato salad if anyone’s hungry. I’d want my friends to eat the way I get to eat when I treat myself — and then I’d want to keep treating them.
I think that would feel really, really good. Like — better than the nesting-doll yacht good.
I don’t want to be mean about it. People are allowed to spend their money how they want; that’s the whole point of having it. And honestly, a regular yacht? With sails? I get it. The hat alone is charming. Maybe doing something dramatic with a boat or a vineyard nobody visits — maybe that does something for them I can’t quite see from here. I’m sure it’s lovely. I’m sure the pictures are nice.
But if you asked me, on a quiet morning at the window, what I’d do with all of it, I wouldn’t pick a hobby that only worked for me. I’d pick the kind where the joy spreads. I’d pick the kind where, when you finally sat down at the end of the day on somebody’s porch, the whole street had something cold to drink and somebody to drink it with.
Maybe that’s not edgy enough to be a hobby. Maybe it’s just noblesse oblige in a pitcher of iced tea. A really big thank-you note to a really good life.
Either way: open window, hot coffee in a tiny cup, silky scarf for the breeze, garden out back that’s about to get loud. Small joys really are big deals.
I think the best things money could buy are mostly just more of the things that already make ordinary days nice.
Just a thought from the kitchen window.
