Catching Happiness

It's Coming

September 12, 2011

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

—Albert Camus

Autumn is my favorite season. Yes, we have autumn in Florida—it’s just not like a typical “autumn” elsewhere. In autumn, cold fronts drop the humidity, and I begin to think being outside is a good idea again. In autumn, I plant a few vegetables hoping for harvest before winter comes.

In autumn, the light through the trees looks different—more golden and mellow instead of harsh and blinding.

A few trees change color, and love bugs appear, and Tank begins growing a winter coat that will have to be clipped off because it will be too hot for him until at least December. The busyness surrounding the start of the school year slows down, but the holiday rush hasn’t started yet. I’m still wearing shorts much of the time, but occasionally I can put on jeans without becoming a puddle of sweat. I feel thankful I’ve survived another summer and look forward to savoring the cooler months ahead.

Autumn isn’t really here yet—but it’s coming. It’s coming.

What’s your favorite season?

Cleaning

Surprised By Happiness

September 09, 2011

When you think of being happy, do you primarily think of doing fun things, getting what you want, or having your life running smoothly? Me, too—but that’s only part of the picture. Happiness is not just something that appears when you reach a goal or finally have that free time you’ve been longing for. Here are some surprising sources of happiness:

For many, work is a source of deep and lasting happiness. Ariel Gore wrote in Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness: “...in recent years I’d noticed a growing disconnect between the things I imagined would make me happy and the things that actually did. Potentially ego-boosting rites of passage in my career, for example—awards or good reviews—only seemed to cause me anxiety. Allowing myself to be absorbed in my work, on the other hand, whether it was writing or teaching or doing some familial chore I outwardly complained about, brought a quiet contentment I could feel radiate from my chest.” She continued later in the book, “When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we’re doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness.”

I don’t know about you, but when I need a quick shot of satisfaction, I begin cleaning and/or organizing. One of my favorite bloggers, Crazy Aunt Purl (Laurie Perry), coped with a scary and unexpected move by scrubbing grout! Perhaps putting one small area of our lives in order helps us cope with chaos elsewhere, I don’t know. All I know is a clean and organized office/refrigerator/hall closet is cause for rejoicing.

“Happy women know that no one gets to be happy all the time,” according to What Happy Women Know, by Dan Baker, Ph.D, Cathy Greenberg, Ph.D, and Ina Yalof. As Gretchen Rubin notes in her blog post, “Negative emotions are a key part of rational thought and effective performance. Also, up to a point, they can be of great service to happiness. They’re loud, flashy signs that something isn’t right. Because they’re so unpleasant, they can sometimes prod us to take action when nothing else can.” Negative emotions are a part of life—feel them, accept them, learn from them—then let them pass.

According to Dr. George E. Vaillant of Harvard Medical School, what seems to contribute most to happiness as we get older are the coping mechanisms we develop to handle the inevitable pain of life. Coping mechanisms like humor, a positive outlook, willingness to control anger and hostility, and treating others the way we’d like to be treated, help us avoid depression and foster connections with others—both of which make our lives more enjoyable.

This makes me…happy. I see that many factors contribute to a person’s happiness—factors we can control, and ordinary things that are likely already part of our daily lives. Happiness is waiting…we just need to recognize it.

What surprising thing makes you happy?

Houses

Old Houses

September 07, 2011

Photo courtesy Fred Fokkelman

Here is a lovely poem by Robert Cording, a poet who lives in Connecticut, which shows us a fresh new way of looking at something commonplace. That’s the kind of valuable service a poet can provide. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Old Houses

Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly

how old houses hold themselves—

before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June—

as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.

I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil

without need of a sign, awaiting nothing

more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Robert Cording from his most recent book of poetry, “Walking with Ruskin,” CavanKerry Press, Ltd., 2010. Reprinted by permission of Robert Cording. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Climbing Trees

Go Climb a Tree

September 02, 2011

One of the bonuses of having my own horse has been the friends I’ve made at the barn where I board. Not long ago, two of us were grazing our horses in the grass along the dirt driveway, when a third friend, Mary Ann, strolled down the road, and reported that she’d just climbed a tree overlooking one of the horses’ paddocks—just to see if she could. This ignited an enthusiastic discussion. Marianne (yes, her name is spelled right: friend one in this story is Mary Ann, friend two is Marianne) admitted she’s climbed the camphor tree in her front yard, also because she wanted to see if she could do it. Marianne also remembered climbing trees with a friend when she was a kid, and rigging a pulley and basket system between their two trees, sending comic books back and forth to each other.

I haven’t climbed any trees lately (I’m thinking I need to get back in practice!), but it was a favorite past time when I was a girl. When we lived in southern California, we had an apricot tree growing near our flat-roofed garage. This tree, in addition to being covered with delicious fruit every summer, also sent its limbs up and over the garage roof, creating a small, enclosed bower, perfect for an 11-year-old who would take a book, shinny up the tree and curl up in a secluded and private reading nook.

Mary Ann just happens to be 60 years old. She has the most youthful spirit of anyone I know. She comes to the barn daily where she does barn chores and takes care of her 22-year-old ex-racehorse. I’m not saying it’s tree climbing that is keeping her young, but it can’t hurt.

Mary Ann and Frenchy

How often do we stop ourselves because we feel we’re “too old” to do something? Why limit ourselves like that? I certainly advocate being careful and following commonsense safety rules, but if you want to ride the roller coaster, white water raft, go hiking, dance to the radio—or go climb a tree—please, go ahead.

Is there anything you secretly long to do that you think you can’t? What keeps you feeling young and energized?