In my last post I wrote about death, illness, and sadness. About how those things are always all around us. They’re part of life and they’re unavoidable. Sometimes it can feel like the sad moments are all of life. But they are only part of life. We can get stuck and forget to see what else is happening all the time all around us.
Over the past weeks I’ve noticed a few little things. I worked close enough to home one day to ride my bike to work and I went down to the shore first and watched the sunrise. After work a few days later I was standing in our front yard and was surrounded by color. All the trees on our street hit their peak fall color at the same time. Across the street one tree looked like flames, a tree in my front yard was half dark red/purple and half bright red, a neighbor’s tree was almost pink, another neighbor’s tree on the other side looked like flames too and in the back was a whole stretch of bright yellow. The other night I watched the sunset as we crossed a bridge. The next morning I was looking out my front door and got the chance to watch a chipmunk. It was only about six feet in front of me munching on maple seeds and leaves. Chipmunks are cool. I like their racing stripes.
These little things are always going on around us. Just doing their things whether we are paying attention or not. I used to notice these sorts of things more regularly. Taking in the awe. Now I’m definitely busier and have more responsibilities which means more mental clutter. It’s the clutter that gets in the way of noticing all this action that always right in front of us.
But it’s always there independent of us noticing.
The hawk that flew over our heads when I was outside with the kids.
The kids’ ridiculous laughter while playing Uno.
The smiles.
The good interactions with people.
The good vibe from something you’ve done to be helpful or useful to someone else.
Dave knocking on my front door to give me a beer he brought back from San Diego.
Playing early morning tennis with friends.
Hugs and kisses.
The little costumed trick or treaters.
The sad things are always there too but they don’t undo all these good, happy things. The sad puts the happy in context. The happy, good things are even better when shown in the light of the sadnesses. Just like it takes the hours of light and dark to make up a day, it takes the sad moments and the happy moments to make up a life. It’s up to us to notice the good stuff. That’s what it means to be present in the moment. We can’t help but notice the sad stuff. It will find us. But the happy stuff is right there too, it’s not hiding, it’s just casually going on all the time. We can be more aware so we notice it and participate in it. It’s like two strands of the same rope, wrapped around each other and intertwined so that they aren’t individual strands anymore but just part of the rope. The happy things and the sad things are all wrapped up to make our lives.
You’re going to feel sad sometimes and that’s ok. That’s normal. That’s expected. But getting stuck in that feeling is where the trouble starts. One moment flows into the next just as one emotion flows into another. It’s ok to have some miserable shit making us sad and still participate in a moment that makes us happy. Allow yourself to move out of one moment into the next and be open to the good stuff. Be on the look out for the happy stuff.