Want a happy life?

 

Delight In It

“The more stuff you love, the happier you will be.”

Ross Gay (The Book of Delights)

          I had lunch yesterday with some friends I hadn’t seen since a year before the pandemic—Pamela and her daughters, Dominique and Elizabeth. Pam had made “a proper lady’s lunch” with crystal glasses, her best china dishes, and silverware. Soup, salad from their own garden, and a layered dessert of cream, and fruit, and more cream and shaved dark chocolate—so good. We had a tour of the house, including Pam’s studio, a sit and rest, by the pool, and good, soulful conversation. But here’s the icing on the cake—a dog named Ringo Starr! What a delight! It just doesn’t get any better than that.

          If you want to be happy, and almost everybody does, look for things that cause delight. For the most part, as Ross Gay says, “joy is invisible,” because we don’t recognize it as such. How do you feel, for instance, when you look at the ground after a long, hard winter, and see tulip leaves poking through the dirt? How about when you go out to walk the dog, and notice that a daisy is blooming through a crack in the asphalt? Or maybe, when you hear a distant scree and look up to see a pair of redtail hawks riding the wind currents high above you. Or when you step out your door in the morning and the birds are already singing like crazy, the sun is rising and the air smells of new-cut grass and jasmine. How about a call from a grandchild who’s holding up his first family drawing and there you are in the line of stick figures?

Joy isn’t found in the earth-shaking, jubilation of grand affairs, but in ordinary things. Small everyday delights add up to a happy life. All that is required for us to experience it are open eyes, awareness, and a grateful heart.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane