Happiness in Detail
Sadness comes in and recedes like the tide. Happiness on the other hand, catches you like a gleam from a lighthouse you didn’t know was out there.
Happiness comes in glimmers…as when listening to a melancholy Burt Jansch while cooking Basmati rice. While at a stop light, talking about the weather with a bottle picker on a bike. At seeing a name beside an e-mail. During a long silence. While walking across an empty lot, the morning sun low and at your back, and watching a thin 30 foot shadow meet the future ahead of you. While giving away a few dollars to a street-survivor you’ve known for years. While shopping for cheese in Safeway. While reading an offer, over coffee, of shedding a burden, taking up a yoke that’s easy. At the prospect of finding rest. For no reason at all.
Thanks, that was beautiful (as always), and made me promise myself (again), to slow down enough not to keep missing those glimmers of happiness.