I took a walk with JB yesterday and hundreds of black birds nestled overhead in the trees. It must have been some kind of special day for them because they sang more than they squawked. The weather and my perspective was grey and chilly and all those birds singing added an aura of intrigue that shouldn't have but it molded into sadness.
There are times when I feel so utterly alone and sometimes I welcome those times because I figure I need the experience for a time when that might truly be the case. It's a foreign place for me, really--to feel and be alone--and I think it would be a plus if only the feeling didn't include sadness.
You know those sappy inspirational quotes exhausting the serenity of living near the ocean and spending the day reading books and living leisurely? I know a couple of people who tell me that's how they actually live. Because I live near the ocean and have time to read books I think that should be me too. I view those people with awe.
I still work because I want to. Money has ceased to press on my day-to-day. I've had a few medical scares this year and my back screams at me to lose weight, but all in all I'm healthy. JB and I have been together long enough that the fibers of being known and permanent love and shared interests carry us past our differences. My daughter is married and it's a good marriage with four children who never fail to delight when they run to me when I pull into their drive way. I'm smarter than I ever thought I'd be and I have the creative benefit of loving to write.
To be clear: I have no doubt I'm committed to my own happiness. But at that point things get murky. I had this epiphany this week: with surprising precision I remembered the two months I came to the Cape to write a manuscript on Happiness. I sat on our red sectional couch each morning, the early morning sun poured in, I had my Peets coffee, and I began to write. I wrote for a couple of hours and then my dog Rosie and I walked one block to the bay beach and I let my mind think and wander and I watched her swim and I chatted with people about what a great day it was, and then I came back to the red couch and followed the same pattern through lunch and then dinner. By the end of the day I'd written for ten hours or so and I was thrilled. JB would come down on weekends and that was nice too.
Where the heck has that 'me' gone? Here I am again on the Cape and on this couch. It's not red but teal this time and the morning sun is more subdued in this house. But I have an exciting book to write and the bay beach is still a block away. What's changed besides the fifteen years between then and now?
I can answer this in a flash: a too-tight body, some too-soon losses, the too-high price of prickly wisdom. But there's something deeper. There's a core of 'me' that's this close to knowing how to really BE. Here. Now. Sometimes I already know. But other times I watch the knowing slip right through my fingers.
I starting writing this post three days ago, in a funk. Tonight I'm at the end of a good day and I have a feeling. What I'm looking for isn't out there.
I tell this story in the the training programs
"Long ago the wise and powerful gods of the world wanted to protect the secret of happiness. "Let's hide it at the bottom of the deepest ocean," one of them said. "No, they'll find it there. Let's bury it at the top of the highest mountain." "No, no," another said, "One day they'll have planes."
Then the littlest among them said, "I know! Let's hide it inside them. They'll never think to look there!"
love
kj
