Choose Happiness

I have been taking a four-day vacation from work, and if you include the weekend, it will be six days.  I sigh twice -- first for the reason it is almost over, second with contentment because I feel so relaxed. I have accomplished only half the things I planned to do in the realm of Spring cleaning, but no matter. Half is better than nothing, and I determined not to put pressure on myself during these much anticipated days off.

Not wanting to feel pressure applies to a book I was reading. It had been recommended and given to me by a friend, whom I will see again in a couple of weeks. It was quite well written, (a national book club selection), and the characterization and sense of place were real and credible. But the protagonist led a depressing life, and as I typically identify with the main character in a book, I did not want to live in her world. I kept reading. I realized I was feeling pressure because my friend wanted me to read and like the book, and I didn't want to disappoint. Nonetheless, about halfway through, I purposed to go no further.  Any friend who is a friend will understand. For me, enough sad things come our way unbidden without living, even vicariously, more of them unnecessarily.

So I picked up a different book, and this is the page I turned to --

So Much Happiness
  by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs
or change.


But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records...


Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

Let me savor the ripe peach and love the floor which needs to be swept. Let me never forget the clutch of  my newborn's hand around my finger, or the solid embrace of loved ones who have passed.  Let me open my eyes and ears to all things beautiful, and choose happiness whenever, wherever I can.

What if ...?

What if ... ?

Yesterday a friend and I watched the movie Letters to Juliet.  It was predictable and enjoyable and will make most women smile. Men might not find it to be their cup of tea, or bottle of _________. But I liked it, and found myself wishing a little true romance for all women. True romance coupled with true love. I think that often one comes without the other. How fortunate for those who have both.

Claire, the main character of the film (played by Vanessa Redgrave), went back to a small town in Italy to look for her lost love of fifty years. She found many men willing to claim to be him, but she knew better. When she thought she had finally found him, she was scared and was going to run away before he saw her. Who could blame her? Imagine how crushing it would be if he didn't remember her. Imagine how devestating it would be if he remembered her and was polite, but indifferent. Imagine if his wife would be jealous (perhaps rightfully so) and cause problems for him.  And, of course, there was a sub-plot of two young people who had just met and were at odds as to what was best for Claire.

This movie can make us wonder about the what if's in our own lives.  There are choices that some of  us wish we had made differently. There are certain irreversibles, for which bemoaning the if only's would be useless, unproductive, and sometimes depressing. But Time does not stand still. Wishing and hoping doesn't make it so. That being said, are there things we can do now to prevent us from saying, "What if..." sometime later in our lives? Doing even one thing may make all the difference. Just one thing.

Some of us know exactly what the one thing is. Some of us may have to ponder it awhile. And perhaps there are some of us for whom nothing comes to mind. But the question is important. We all should be courageous enough to ask it -- and if answered, wise enough to pray for guidance as to how to proceed. Choices we make affect others. We must ask for wisdom. We must ask for guidance. And I believe that if we ask, we shall receive.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these:  "It might have been!"
   John Greenleaf Whittier