identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

Eyes filled with childlike wonder as, still wrapped in my duvet, I wake to see the world wrapped in it’s own fleecy white blanket.

The joy of being the first person to crunch my footsteps into the ground, turning back now and then to look at them with a modicum of the pride Neil Armstrong might have felt. Then later in the day finding more…footsteps of all different sizes and all different species…each a word typed on the landscape that all intertwine to tell stories of children playing in the snow; a lone cat hesitantly plodding along, stopping to shake his paw at every step before turning back toward the warmth of home; and the poor soul whose careful footprints on the stairs come suddenly to a large indented halt. Impromptu snow angel, one hopes…

I love a challenge, and what a sweet challenge it is to dream of ways to get warm when the cold air pinches and words waft skyward in smoky tendrils. Wearing layer upon layer of fabric like a fancy-dress russian doll; sitting curled up in front of the fire with a mug of hot chocolate; staying that little bit longer under the hot shower, an oasis of tropicality in the domestic tundra. And, when we can make it, having someone to camp under the covers with, to hold close, warming cold noses with an eskimo kiss.

As beautiful as the creature might be with all of its colours and connotations of metamorphosis and the soul in flight, I’m talking here about the feeling. Having people in your life who excite you, who trigger something in your own personality that brings out the best in you, who turn your world upside down and yet somehow make it look more like the right way round than it ever has before. It’s infuriating but enchanting, an exquisite kind of torture you endure in their absence and that is only partially quenched by their presence. A hunger that cannot be sated. As impossible to describe as the butterfly is elusive of capture.

Matching the rhythm to my blues, beats to the upbeat, melody to my sense of harmony: I love the intense feeling that comes from matching music to my moods. Whether I’m happy or not, just having an externalised rendition of what I’m going through amplifies the good times, soothes the bad, and drowns out the rage with empathetic fury.

I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality – H. A. Overstreet

Serenity is, for me, an expression. There is no more beautiful or more palliative a sight than looking into the open face of someone who is at peace with themselves and the world around them. Though time may have etched its progress on the surface, there is a deep and smooth calmness at work on such a face that speaks of a secret yet simple truth; a youthful wisdom that sees hope and optimism despite (or perhaps because of) life’s tribulations. I could not say precisely what is the feature that affects me so deeply. For one person it might be the warmth in their eyes, for another the irrepressible half-smile that plays about their lips, while yet another might seem to exude kindness from every pore. I cannot define it exactly, and to do so might take something away from the experience; as a captured image cannot faithfully recall the calming movement of the soothing water as it flows against the stubborn shore.

I think I was up to around 8 things on this goal with my last account (thank Friar Tuck it wasn’t 88!) so I will commune with my inner optimist and come up with some new ones from scratch instead of repeating the old entries.

Well, I always like to go one better…why not eight better? =P