For most of my life, happiness was always “out there” somewhere…
After getting the job, quitting the job, getting the person, quitting the person, going to therapy, getting the accolade, and on and on…
My friend and I have a running joke where we punctuate our future plans -- whether it be a vacation, or moving, or getting ice cream -- with “…and THEN I’ll be happy.”
As if happiness is a final destination.
We know that it’s not. We know it’s right there on the edges of every moment.
We know there is no “and THEN I’ll be happy… forever.”
There will always be the chores of daily life, hard days, challenges, and compounded interest.
Learning how to carry that, and still look for happiness on the edges isn’t easy.
This is a poem about that.
This poem first appeared in Vol 3., Issue 1 of the digital lit mag, “Instant Noodles.”
The poem of the week is: Return
Happiness isn’t given to you like a watch’s flowering hell* it can’t be mined, like some quickly degrading treasure, its worth worth millions of unbeating hearts. It’s more like a near-fallow field you finally decide to toil in. Every day, a turning, a churning, a planting. Emptiness greets you each morning, sometimes you curse it, and piss on the dirt. But you return all the same a weeding, a feeding, a cleaning. Finally, dicots, two by two by two, cover everything like a green mist. Now the real work begins, caring for this unfolding flora of love atop stems of heartache. Moments of sublime beauty, fully born. Then petals peel away, and bodies harden into straw crumbling into the dirt. A brief wonder Gone to become a glorious memory. Mourn it not forever, the flowers will come again, if you also return. *From Julio Cortázar’s “Preámbulo a las instrucciones para dar cuerda al reloj”
Really love the watercolor!!
Beautiful ❤️