And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
This was one of those weeks where I had to remind myself why I started writing this blog in the first place, or at least, what I’ve learned while writing it. I’ve learned that happiness doesn’t just happen. You have to look for it. And that happiness doesn’t have to be big – sometimes it’s in the smallest of things.
After writing the blog every day for a year, back when it was called Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, readers demanded and my publisher insisted that it become a book. Which it is: Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News; A Year Of Spontaneous Essays. Once, when I was presenting the book at a library, a reader asked me an unusual question. “What is your least favorite entry?” he asked.
I’d often been asked what was my favorite, and I had that all ready. But what was my least favorite? I believe my intelligent answer was, “Ummm…”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Take a minute to think about it.”
So I did. And eventually, I answered that it was one that I wrote about waiting in the drive-thru at Starbucks. I was in the convertible, and while I waited, the breeze picked up a crumpled straw wrapper and blew it all around me. It reminded me of a white moth, which brought me back to my childhood, when I considered moths to be butterflies.
A small moment. That particular blog, my least favorite, was a reminder that I had to consider today.
It’s been a hard week. I wrote about the AllWriters’ Annual Retreat last week, and that event, from Thursday through Sunday, was wonderful. It felt so good to be in my own groove, surrounded by people I love, and doing what I love. But it was also a four-day reminder that Michael is gone. Wherever I looked, he wasn’t. The hardest moment was when we took a break on Saturday afternoon for a reading. My faculty read, a special student guest read, and I read. It was my first time doing a reading since Michael’s death. And for the first time, I looked out into an audience and didn’t see him. He was always my cue – he let me know if I was reading too fast or too softly. Mostly, he gave me a thumb’s up.
There was no thumb’s up last Saturday.
Hard, hard, hard.
I also found myself trying to explain grief to our 23-year old daughter, whose first experience with death is losing her father. She wanted to know why she wasn’t feeling happy – six weeks after her father’s death. How to explain something so difficult, so ephemeral, so life-changing?
Hard, hard, hard.
Last night, right before I signed off of my computer, I gasped when a headline went by with Michael’s photo on it. An article was appearing in one of the local papers about his death and about the lack of punishment for the driver. I wasn’t expecting to see Michael, and suddenly there he was, and then he was gone.
Hard, hard, hard.
And then, overnight, I finally had a dream where I saw Michael. I’ve been waiting for this. But the dream was a nightmare. I dreamt I was picking him up from some special kind of rehab program. He was brought home with others on a bus. He walked toward me, carrying his walker, not using it, and as he got closer, he tossed it to the side. I was elated! He looked so good. But then he got silly and started to show off. He took a big pile of our daughter’s Squishmallows (if you don’t know what these are, look them up) and tied them all around himself with string. He couldn’t see where he was walking. And he didn’t see a big hole in the ground. Despite my yelling at him to step away, he stepped in and fell. The hole was deep enough that I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was gone. Right after he got well. I woke up in mid-scream.
Hard, hard, hard.
I also woke up wondering what the heck I was going to write about. How do you write about happiness in the middle of all this sadness?
You look for the small things.
I was walking back from Walgreens and my neighbors, who live between my condo complex and Walgreens, were on their porch. They have a small yard, and this year, they planted a garden. You can barely see the grass for the cucumber and pumpkin leaves and vines. Orange pumpkins have begun to peek out from between the leaves.
They called me over, to ask how I was doing and how Olivia was doing. I gave what is now my standard answer: “It depends on the moment.”
“Have you learned to cook yet?” they asked and we both laughed. Michael was the cook in the family – I don’t know how, other than making a mean meat loaf, and also spaghetti and lasagna.
“Not really,” I said. I’ve been living on frozen meals, sandwiches, and Spaghetti-Ohs. Oh, and ice cream.
“Do you like cucumbers?” they asked.
I do. They handed me two lovely cucumbers. I know what to do with cucumbers!
I carried them home. At suppertime, I scrounged through my almost empty freezer and found a few pieces of chicken left in a box of Banquet frozen fried chicken. I put them in the oven. In my cabinet, I found a can of waxed beans, which I love, and I set them on the stove in a pot. Then I peeled one cucumber. Immediately, my kitchen was filled with that fresh scene of cucumber. I’ve often said someone should make an air freshener out of it. Unwilling to wait, I chomped on a couple slices as I arranged the rest on my plate like a pile of poker chips. I had some ranch salad dressing in my fridge, and I added a dollop as a dip.
Everything went on my plate. Chicken. Wax beans. Cucumber. I sat down at our island and I ate dinner like it used to be. Only now, it was by myself.
And oh, that cucumber. Fresh and crunchy. My parents used to have a garden, and our dinners during the summer always held a plate of cucumbers. Sometimes cut in poker chips. Other times cut lengthwise, and I would eat one big full-length piece like an ear of corn, with the seeds being the kernels.
It felt so good, sitting there, eating a regular meal. I had a book by my side to keep me company.
You look for the small things.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
