Wednesday 7 September 2011

insight

Yesterday I wallowed, a little--I felt a sadness creep up on me; then overwhelm. I was shocked and stunned and bewildered, really, by the expanse of time. How quickly and how resolutely this year seems to have paced on--how I've been unable to catch or savour it or, more than that, accomplish it. Because that's right: back in January, I had a list. A mental one, then an actual one that, by hand I had prepared. This, I vowed, was to be a big and important year.

So at first I wallowed about the things I haven't quite accomplished this year and then, the mechanics of my brain retreated; backwards. They chronicled the things I was meant to do years ago--or the ways I was meant to have changed: the independence and the courage and the the competence I was to have yielded. How these things were meant to prosper, most, as university grew and nurtured me. And then--then I remembered something, something Meg wrote, a--a small, (at the time) seemingly insignificant line about a music festival, and about the fact she was "doing what I couldn't have done a year ago". That's it, I thought, and it--everything, actually--suddenly, happily, had so much more significance.

It's about pace, isn't it? About what we can do when we can--when certain situations exert their power and what others take away. Perhaps I was too ambitious in my list of things--too confident in quick-fixes or the breadth of time and energy. But those things I've left out, thus far, I've filled with more. Not actions, so much, as thought.

I'm feeling what I couldn't have done a year ago.

And by that I mean that things--certain things, mostly talked about here, then here--are getting better. They are widening, a little, with the smallest of stretches. Yes, there is such a way to go--a colossal breadth of space of amble--but I'm feeling better--saner--more tuned in. So if I haven't crossed too many things off my list--I've started. That, right now (though, not always) speaks volumes--tomes, in fact.

I look to Meg, a lot, for insight and wisdom and, I suppose, methodologies on life. She is one of the wisest women I know (or feel I know) and she never, ever fails to surprise me with a new, challenging perspective. Yesterday, she posted about her own sadness in a beautifully raw and beautifully honest account, in the ways she, repeatedly, does best. Amongst it, though, was a vow to chronicle the things that lead her happiness. And again--again, I thought: that's it, that is exactly what I have needed to read. So I want to start doing the same--and where I already do, I want more of it. More of the things that raise smiles and lift eyes--more, especially, going into a time that might very well be my final year of school (in my favourite seasons possible).

So--today--happiness is this:

It's the concentration back to school brings, whatever age I reach; mugs of tea, minus the sugar; stormy weather and the music it creates; pomegranate, mango and strawberries in a savoury salad; and the urge I get, every so often, to load Diana with film.

I'm curious, now. What brings you happiness today?

*Please, please, please check out Meg's blog. You won't regret meeting her, or her beautiful, insightful prose.


3 comments:

  1. I love this post and I love Meg's post that encouraged this. I think we as people become too fixated on happiness as a thing, something we can buy or something that requires something else for it to be possible.

    Sometimes it's found in the spaces in between and I think that's wonderful too.

    Early this year when I was first traveling around Asia I went to a temple and I prayed... I'm not a religious or spiritual person, but I feel compelled to do so and I did. I sat there, before the statute, with my little incense stick well lit and I prayed to find happiness in unusual places. I hoped to find it in the moments I fall, and the mistakes I make and the knowledge that I'll learn from them and be a better person for it.

    I love her words and I love reading her blog and I love that there are so many other people, like me, learning from her journey as we travel our own. How divine! xx

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  2. You are such a beautiful writer! I'm very happy to have found your blog. I also find happiness in watching and re-watching episodes of 30 Rock and The Office, lighting my favorite scented candles, taking long showers, making the baby for whom I nanny laugh . . . And oh how I can relate to your posts about worrying. You put those thoughts into words perfectly.

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  3. She really is wonderful, isn't she?

    But you know what? You my dear are the most inspiring blogger I have come across. I always turn to your blog when I need something to pull me out of whatever rut I have put myself into. Seeing how much you have changed and grown this year blows me away. While you may not have done everything on your list, you have achieved so many great things- greater even maybe than what was on your original list. xoxo

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