A Petal of Happiness

My grandmother is 96 years old. An almost incomprehensible age. She has eleven great grandchildren, the youngest of whom, at one year old, is 95 years younger than her. She might be older than almost everything around me, including the house I live in and probably most of the trees in my yard, but she’s still, as they say, all there, smart, funny, and often tactless.

On this visit to Israel I soaked up on my Safta’s love and wisdom, feeling stronger than ever how lucky I am to have someone like her in my life. “At my age,” Safta said, “you learn to find happiness in the little things: the song of birds, the fact that the sun rose yet another morning, the blooming cyclamen.” At 96, Safta seems to have stopped worrying about earning money, self realization, or the melting of the arctic ice cap. Like an ancient olive tree on a terraced hillside, my Safta just is.

Gorgeous clouds

I often think that, involved in the pursuit of future happiness, we miss the happiness that is right in front of our eyes. I remember, when I was still single, thinking that my writing would, for sure, flow better once I’m in a relationship. Sadly, no such luck. I continually look forward to the times when the kids are with me as times of future happiness, but when the kids come, happiness is as elusive as ever. I’m sure I’ll be really happy if I moved to live in Hawaii. Or Yosemite. Or if my cousins lived nearer to me. Or if I had a King Charles Spaniel to follow me around.

In the pursuit of happiness, we rarely recognize happiness when we feel it, and often confuse our lack of recognition with our ambition to stretch farther the limits of our world. It is easier to pause and smell the roses when I am not rushing to meet friends or thinking about where my next meal is coming from. Embroiled in the struggles of life, a rose seems trivial, a thorn in the way. But just think of the added quality of life that comes from that pause, the lowering of the nose to the open petals, the deep breath that fills the entire body with a perfumed lungful of oxygen and fresh start.

Lonely Seagull

My mother says that even in the ugliest yard there is a splash of beauty. In a busy street in Tel Aviv, the pavement dark with the exhaust fumes of buses, birds sing in the trees, just as in the postcard-view of palms on a sandy Hawaii beach. Similarly, my Safta, in between enjoying the pink buds of the cyclamen, still worries that my 27 year-old cousin is not eating enough. Us humans love to improve, to change, to grow, and though we create much that is dark, we also bring to life much that is wonderful.

Juice at end of the walk

This morning, before I set out for my walk on the promenade of Tel Aviv, I am setting the intention to notice the little happinesses in life. I wish you the joy of smelling the roses today and noticing the birds singing on every branch. In the midst of every storm, if you can find the sunshine, a rainbow spans. And you know where that leads, right? To where the blue birds fly.

Chasing Life Bubbles

A moment I remember. Rain drizzling. Mud swirling round my feet. We are dragging many parcels out of the Roatan vacation rental and into a taxi van. I squeeze in the back with the children, waiting for Dar to hurry in from the rain. Instead, he turns to the driver and introduces himself, finds out the driver’s name, his son’s name, shakes both their hands, explains where we want to go.

A moment of courtesy. So simple and real, and yet a revelation to me. In my eyes, the taxi driver was a means to an end. I wanted to get out of that resort, and he was literally the vehicle taking me away. To Dar, however, the taxi driver was a fellow human being with whom he was going to spend some part of morning and who he therefore wanted to get to know.

A moment of insight. My heart told me that I wanted to go through life meeting people in the same way, reaching out to each individual as equal in importance: a stewardess taking my ticket to scan, a waiter serving me a meal, a friend I meet for a gossip-laden lunch. Catching a person’s eyes, asking a meaningful “how are you?” and really pausing for an answer have gained me feelings of closeness and appreciation from a seat mate on the plane, a fellow writer in a conference, and the checkout lady at the grocery store.

A moment of contact. I follow my path in life, meet other people, and my bubble of life touches theirs and then separates, departs. The longer I linger with every encounter, the more I am part of the myriad puzzle of life. Each contact opens an opportunity for knowledge, for growth. I ask myself, “is there something I can learn from this meeting, from this homeless man on the street or the old lady who began talking, clearly in need of some loneliness relief? Was there a point to the irritating girl who tried to convince me to donate to Greenpeace and wouldn’t let me go?”

A moment of gratitude. Sometimes that’s all, and everything, I can reap from this touching of life bubbles. A feeling of well-being, of inter-connectedness with others on this world. An awareness that kindness exists, generosity, good humor. The realization that I am not so different from the mother of the little boy who is screaming and crying and kicking his legs on the floor of the department store, from the frustrated little boy himself, or from the saleswoman behind the counter who pretends not to see the chaos unfurling right there before her eyes.

Amazing how we are all one and we are all unique. All interesting and worth getting to know. All worthy of being loved and listened to. The garbage collector, the mortuary manager, the dog walker and policewoman, the president of the USA, the bus driver, the computer guy in the next cube. Me and you.

On Wings of Exhaustion

My title this morning is literally true. I am sitting on an airplane heading to Phoenix, with a clear view of the plane’s wings out my window. And I am exhausted. I’m tired because I woke up at 5am San Antonio time, which is 3am California time and 6am New York time, and I don’t have a clue which time zone my body is in anymore. My weariness stems from physical causes and from the emotional toll of last weekend’s funeral and being separated from Dar on and off for four weeks. Cumulative tiredness.

Yesterday I walked around the Riverwalk. I started in downtown San Antonio, walking by the many restaurants, clubs, and cafes, and turned south toward the missions. The sun shone brightly, and after a while I removed my jacket. I was happy I had the forethought to bring a light shirt and less thrilled about having forgotten my sun screen. The park surrounding the Riverwalk is lovely. Trees, shrubs, and lawns glowed green to perfection against a clear blue sky. Butterflies fluttered like colorful flying flowers and birds chirped in the trees. Heaven.

Near King William neighborhood the houses turned to old Southern homes with huge balconies and porches and front yards beautifully-groomed. I discovered Mad Hatter’s Cafe and ordered myself some tea, sitting down to write my blog. When the waiter arrived with my teapot he explained that I must pick my own cup from the many cups and saucers, each unique, piled on the shelves.

For lunch I sat above the river in a partly shaded patio. I watched water taxis gliding below, filled with tourists, and couples meandering hand in hand in the romantic pathways. I walked north for over a mile, enjoying the waterfalls that many hotels built flowing into the river and which I later learned add oxygen to the water. I watched the ducks and cormorants diving into the murky river to catch whatever food there is in there for them to eat. For a while, all yesterday, I felt renewed, rejuvenated, fresh.

And then I had to wake up this morning to get on the plane, and blah, I’m tired again.

But maybe not. Maybe the light blue and white skies outside of my oval airplane window fill me with energy, and the brown and green  squares of agricultural, the lines of rivers, ridges, roads and the rounded lakes that create the landscape below inspire me with wonder, a longing to explore, the pull of adventure. And suddenly I’m not tired at all.

The world is spreading its pink rounded edges before me, full of possibility and promise of a new day. I am grateful for being here, for experiencing the miracle of sunrise, for taking deep breaths and being able to write to you. I don’t know what the rest of my day holds, but this is how I’d like live it: with gratitude, love and attention to the moment. I’m excited to be going home.

Extra Gratitude Bonus: Freedom from Regrets

Imagination is a wonderful asset, but at times it can be a burden, especially if it is out of control and predicting disasters. And my imagination is well-exercised in discovering horrors where none exist. This morning, when I heard the airline agent say that there is no more room in the overhead bins, and can passengers please volunteer to check their luggage, I decided, as we say in Hebrew, to heal the bruise before the injury happened, and checked my little sports bag.

Perhaps I should be honest and start a little earlier, with the challah and banana bread I had baked for Dar. I didn’t want them to get squished under all my stuff, so I put them in a plastic bag and carried it -- a third carry-on -- through security and all the way up to the gate. Being a law-abiding citizen, however, and having an imagination that can’t help but predict catastrophes (and make them seem illogically huge), I stressed about being told that I cannot bring this third plastic bag onto the airplane.

Once those officially-clad gals behind the counter announced the no-room-please-check-your-luggage message over the air, my fears would not let me stay seated, bundled up as I was with three parcels while the rest of the world was forced to carry only one. The agent was quite surprised, to tell the truth. She feebly tried to refuse my little sports bag, but I explained about having my backpack with me, and she gave up, shrugging at the crazy lady who checks in such a small bag when other people attempt to squeeze enormous, industrial-sized suitcases into the narrow bins.

Instantly regrets assailed me. Had I let my fears overcome my common sense by giving up my bag? What if it gets lost?What if there is room in the overhead bins after all? What if we have to wait for a very long time for the bag to come out at the carousel?

I texted the confession of my frailty to Dar, but for some reason he did not get upset. He texted me back that Rochester is a small airport, no problem, and the transfer in Chicago is sure to go well. And suddenly, it dawned on me -- here is an opportunity for a moment of gratitude. In the midst of regret, over-imagination, anxiety and perceived disaster, I can be grateful for having one less bag to carry in Chicago while I switch planes!

The sun rose in my internal sky. My heart lightened. I had found a remedy for my regrets! Opening myself up to gratitude shifted my entire mood. Here was a way to turn bad (or at least perceived bad) into good. Next on my list for today, turning straw into gold. And, just to conclude, my bag came out of the carousel first.

Moments of Gratitude

A few days ago I waited at a stop sign for a bicycle to pass by, a dad with his daughter riding behind him on a trailer bike. As I watched them whiz past, the girl, no more than six years old, released her hold on the handlebars and spread her arms wide against the wind, her little legs pumping the pedals, hair flying behind from under her helmet.

A moment of gratitude for childhood and freedom, for these priceless memories, father and daughter having fun together. A moment of gratitude for the beautiful day, health, love and family.

Later, driving up the hill, a lone egret caught my eye, her graceful body standing erect, white against the green of the grass. Somehow, just watching that one egret, I felt ready to fly, filled with hope and joy.

Often these moments of gratitude are just that, a twinkling of a moment, so small it is easy to miss them if I don’t pay attention, so everyday that I feel it’s a miracle I notice them at all. My daughter’s face as she sits reading a book on her carpet before she realizes I am watching her. My son’s serious face as he plays the violin. The puppies huddled together as a pack on one doggie bed. Holding hands with Dar when we walk into the Farmers’ market. A piece of chocolate melting under my tongue.

My daughter’s Jewish Studies teacher calls these “I am grateful moments,” or in Hebrew, “Modeh Ani.” At school, she allows children to stand up in the morning and tell the entire group of first to third graders what their moment of gratitude is. My mother is going to have a baby today. I won a gymnastic competition. Wonderful, wonderful things happen to these wonderful kids.

According to Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, “Gratitude is a key to happiness,” and “consistently grateful people are happier and more satisfied with their lives.” I’ve noticed that whenever I let these moments of gratitude enter my life, my heart expands, I feel more connected to the world, and yes, happier, more full of joy.

Ms. Rubin recommends keeping a gratitude journal, writing a few words each day that express thankfulness for something that happened that day, or dedicating a few minutes every day to express gratitude verbally. I’ve decided to have a “moment of gratitude” tweet each day on twitter.

I love this quote by JFK: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” As a writer, I am far too prone to utter words and then completely forget to live by them. But I hope that by writing my joy and being attentive to these moments of joy in order to express them, I will have assimilated the feeling of gratitude into every moment of life, whether it is good, bad, or in between.