Tuesday, October 15, 2013

happiness all around




Despite all the wisdom about creating your own happiness homeostasis from within, sometimes life just feels plain gross, and it's hard to think otherwise.  And then sometimes happiness just keeps doing jumping jacks all around you.  I am pleased to say that I've been experiencing lots of happiness lately.  Not only are a pair of screech owls living in my yard (sorry no pictures, but I did see them and do hear them!), but I've also been regularly hearing a fox barking around midnight through my open window while I'm reading in bed.  Last night I went out to my parents' house to wash and iron fabric and I finished around 11:30.  The fog was so magnificently low and thick when I went out to my car to drive home, and I heard a barred owl calling persistently out at the edge of the woods.  And then, I rode my bike around town for errands this morning and evening... and there isn't anything much nicer in life than riding a bike around town.  You can see and smell and hear everything so much more vividly, and it is so freeing to pedal yourself and feel so happy to be healthy and energetic enough to propel forward into the wind!  This morning there were all kinds of delightful incidences... like the older lady at the post office who was so chipper and full of things to say, and then the two old men in the McDonald's parking lot, one sitting in his worn out truck (with a little brown lap dog lounging extravagantly over the back of the bench seat), and gesturing wildly to another man across to way to guide him in un-stucking a big branch out from under his truck.  And then this evening, after a good day of sewing and folding note cards, I rode my bike to the grocery store and the library.  Sometimes I feel nervous gearing up to do the hill in front of the railroad tracks... it is especially steep with baskets full of groceries, but it feels so good to get home with jelly legs and know you are hungry and have food to eat!  And speaking of the railroad tracks (which run right in front of my house), today I looked up from the sewing machine to see a series of old train cars - like from the Seaboard Air Line Railway (why I don't know?)... and they made me happy, too.  Wouldn't it be fun to take a nice, long ride on a train with a dining car, a good book, and unexpectedly good conversations with strangers?!

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