This is in response to Wendy, over on Penguin Writer. It’s a fun exercise, listing things of all sizes that make you happy, and it’s actually something that I’ve done a version of for years. When I’ve had a particularly bad day, I’ll comb through every single moment of it, listing all the things that made me happy. Now, granted, these things can get pretty microscopic. But often I’ll end up with a list of thirty to forty things that went well that day, and suddenly my perspective will be changed. I promise that today, though, I’ll try to limit the list to some readable number of items.
But before I launch into my list, I’d like to add just one more thing. When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. And in it, a character says, “Did you know there are thirty-two different names for love in one of the Eskimo languages? And we have just one, we are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving a Coke with peanuts.”
That quote, more than anything else I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a lot), has stuck with me. I don’t know if there truly is an Eskimo language that has thirty-two words for love. But it’s the idea that’s important to me, that if you think really hard about all the forms of love you experience in life, there’re at least thirty-two. Maybe more. I think about it a lot, and the reason why I’m bringing it up now is because I think that happiness is the same way. There may not be a language that has thirty-two words for happiness, but it’s the same concept. I’ll try to list things here that bring me all different sorts of happiness, from the incredibly large to the incredibly small (and in no particular order).
1) clean laundry
2) going out on a limb to a friend, telling them something I’ve never told anyone else, and having them completely understand
3) finding a song that identically matches my mood or circumstances
4) suddenly realizing that, just by being myself, I’ve gathered true friends who’ve somehow found myriad reasons to love me, and that I feel the exact same way about all of them
5) waltzing all by myself and knowing that no one around me cares that I’m bouncing around to 3/4 time while wearing headphones
6) discovering the perfect piece of office supplies (panda-bear folder, anyone?)
7) looking at the stars
7.5) seeing a shooting star
8) asking myself “If I could be anywhere right now, where would I be?” and having my answer be “Right here.”
9) stuffed animals
10) the sky when it has some clouds, or at sunset or sunrise, or when it’s the deep, endless blue that makes me think of the phrase “the vault of the heavens.”
11) pale pink roses
12) laughing until it hurts to breathe, and then laughing a bit more just because it’s so funny that I can’t stop
13) mopping the stage
14) getting a sweet when I don’t expect to get one
15) singing at the top of my lungs when no one is home
16) making other people happy
I could go on, but sixteen is a good number for now, don’t you think? Wendy, thank you so much for the lovely invitation to write this list — it was delightfully fun! I encourage everyone else to do the same, simply for the experience of writing it. It really is lovely just to do, even if you don’t have a blog or don’t intend to share it with anyone.
“Pleasure is spread through the earth / In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find” -William Wordsworth
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