top of page

HAPPINESS
January 12, 2014

Happiness is a chasing of the wind

Spector like, a ghost of many dispositions

Chasing the vapor trail of a jet with your eyes

across the Michigan winter



Happiness is a five year old girl if you’re a

five year old boy

who doesn’t yet know why, but knows there is something

different,something intriguing, something mysterious



Happiness seems like balloons and birthday cakes

and streamers and ribbons

But sometimes happiness is a familiar blanket and

a football game

A remembered scent or taste, your favorite coffee cup



Happiness is the first day of vacation and often the last

The first day the kids are home and the first they are back to school

It is the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny

Santa and Jesus intermingled in December,

beautiful poinsettias in an emergency room or nursing home

the contrast, the irony



It is a tail wag and a furry ball, it is a reunion at terminal 5 and

a rekindled love affair

It is graduation day and the first day of kindergarden

It is your loved one arriving home after a 12 hour shift

A sale on your favorite perfume



It is opening day and World Series, box seats and bleachers

Sunny, surprising days in March and October

A January thaw, a car wash

Happiness is a snow day and a first crush reciprocated

The best house on the block Halloween night and a home

cooked breakfast.



Happiness is so many things

It is a new pair of boots and a broken in slipper

Drivers permit and renewing your license at 85

Being able to remember my great grandmothers lemon cake

40 years later as if yesterday, with the orange frosting and her bone china

teacups.

My great grandfathers Irish brogue and his plain green tattoos





It is watching the people I grew up become grandparents and gracefully age

and do and say the things that they never thought they’d say

It is all those things and more, but it has a dark side



It is a slippery eel and an unfaithful wench

People spend lifetimes chasing it only to have it elude them

they look for it at the bottom of a bottle and beneath the sheets of

a cheap hotel bed

The seek it in strangers and pills and in dark alleys

But it is a tricky lover



And what I’ve learned and what I now realize

Is that happiness is not found anywhere

except inside your mind

It is a state of mind, a way of being.

People can’t make you happy

only enhance your happiness.

All of these things I’ve mentioned can make a happy person smile

But will not phase the person without happiness in their soul.

Gratitude and thankfulness pave the road to a happy soul

Appreciation and humility provide the road markers

A clear conscience is the vehicle

A smile the headlights to show the world you’re here



It is said some people light up a room when they walk in and

others light up a room when they leave

Who will you choose to be? The choice should be easy

bottom of page