The good stuff

Some mornings I awaken with a light heart. Some mornings I awaken to existential dread. I know why the existential dread. No explanation necessary there. But why the light heart? A beguiling dream? A good night’s sleep? How the body-warmed flannel sheets feel in that moment I gain consciousness? A lemony sky outside the window? Sometimes. Maybe. But more often, there is no reason. And I love that. I love the surprise. I love that it is a feeling I can’t plan for or make happen.

 But there is a flipside to that. And I am betting we all have experienced it. It is when we work hard for the light heart, for the delight, when we plan for it, imagine it, fantasize about it. And it doesn’t happen. We invest time, energy, hope, dreams (heart)—money-- in a big or small “something” that we believe will bring us joy. Maybe it’s just a dinner we’ve planned and the warmth and delight we imagine—assume—will be part of that. Maybe it’s that long-anticipated trip to Umbria or Chania, the one that in the imagination is more like a romantic movie with us in the lead role. And then, it’s not that.

 When this happens, when the planned joy doesn’t materialize, it can be more than disappointing. It can be dispiriting. It can suck the energy from the moment we are having, from an experience that may be perfectly fine, just not over-the-top exultant, not blissfully jubilant. I think most planned experiences are like this, maybe because the energy we put in the past (the planning) and the energy we put in the future (imagining) means when we’re actually in the present, we’ve got nothing left. I don’t know.

 What I do know is that these morning awakenings (or those random moments on the trail or in the garden or on the river) when the world gives us so very many reasons not to be happy, but happiness gobsmacks us…I mean seriously, folks, that’s good stuff, isn’t it?