Calle Amarilla, Puerto Vallarta, April 2008.
***
Less than love is nothing
And nothing is not enough
And more than anything
I wish you love
Jonatha Brooke
***
Happy Love Thursday, folks!
I’m here wishing, hoping and projecting ~
that somehow…
I will make it here this summer ~
to enjoy a magical campfire serenaded by her music ~
&
to be surrounded by these angels
Actually, seductresses!!!
Who really happen to be my teachers
In the Art of living… a happier and fuller life!
*****

Balinese Baskets in the Market, Ubud, 2008.
So Much Happiness
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.
Naomi Shihab Nye
***
I noticed that I’ve been resisting to post because I’ve been waiting for that extra special ‘something’ to take the main stage in my life. On the other hand, there is this curious lightness of being in the air and a lack of eventfulness that is quite nice, actually. So I began to wonder… Why do we always write and talk so much about our search and desire for the inner calm, but when it actually comes our way, we easily dismiss it as unimportant and uninteresting?
The answer is in this poem above, which I found in this sweet little book I picked up the other day. Indeed, happiness floats. And right now it really feels as if I have been suspended by a calm and soothing bliss. It’s not ecstatic or anything… It’s just peaceful and spacious here, in this moment.
So I am going to keep this post short today, but I’m going to offer you my perspective from where I stand at this point in time. The reason I chose the image above is because it illustrates what I see from this state of * happy * stillness. Nothing is dull in my life because it lacks the drama. Nothing is perfect either. From here I see my life as a beautiful collection of small compartments filled with ideas, moments, memories, plans and thoughts. Some of these containers are filled with prettier parts, some are more colorful than others… Some I keep at the top, some are stashed in the bottom… Some I like to show off and some I hide in the back to never look at. These are pieces of me. Pieces and bits I carry. Baggage that weighs me down and gifts that lift me to the sky! From this point of quietude though, I am not choosing one thing to focus on. Instead, all these living boxes only prevail to form a big picture with a large “You are Here” sign, that places me on the map of my existence. For once, I don’t feel the pressure to choose, interact or react. Sure there are things that still need attention and work (hence my previous post). Besides, we always feel the need to push forward no matter what, don’t we? And in my case, there is still that ‘almighty’ wait for the green card, of course… Oh! If I could begin to tell you how that anticipation has burned and consumed me in the past few months and years…
But not now. Now I am just sitting in this pool of tranquility. All this other “stuff” remains out there to be solved, fixed, taken care of… Yet, I am content going on walks, taking the time to bake, watering the plants, loving my husband, and eating a sandwich under this one beautiful tree by my work, where I like to read poetry for one full * filling * lunch hour.
Not much indeed. But somehow this mellowness warms me like the sunshine coming through my window this morning… It flows, and it is enough.