Musings: Overwhelming Happiness

Play me first!

Every so often I have one of those moments of overwhelming happiness. I can feel it in my heart-- a sort of surrounding, bubbling, rising warmth, a noticeable lack of anxiety or heaviness, something like the feel of a soft knit wool sweater. The irresistible turn of lips upward.

It happens somewhat unexpectedly.

The drive home on a Texas highway after a wonderful evening of conversation, good food, and a great movie with a new friend.

The contentment of a quiet moment on the couch with an old friend.

That realization walking to school on a crisp clear morning that I was sincerely happy to be alive for the first time in a long time.

A Sunday afternoon spent hand in hand, curled up and drifting towards sleep, not a word being said.

The family reunited on a favorite simple outing.

The moments after a breath-taking question when I realized just how blessed I am in love and friendship.

An hour spent alone in a coffeeshop with a warm drink and a book, or perhaps just some paper and pen.

A familiar song in an unfamiliar place.

That moment in which it's undoubtable that you are once again home.

A rainy day spent indoors watching raindrops trickle their way down the window.

The glimpse of sunlight through the trees that dips the edge of everything in gold.

So Much Happiness

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.

from Words under the Words

Photo by Kara Haberstock, 2010, all rights reserved