Someone said something kind the other day, and instead of brushing it off the way I used to, I sat with it. They thought happiness came easily to me. I didn't correct them, but I thought about it for a long time after.
Life teaches some of us in small, patient lessons. Others get the crash course. I've had a few semesters of the second kind — the sort where the floor disappears and you find out, fairly quickly, who you are when the things you counted on are no longer in the room. Those years taught me resilience, which is the polite word for it. They also taught me how easily a person can turn hard on themselves in the name of getting through.
What people see now is the result of a long walk, not the absence of one. Happiness comes more naturally these days, but only because I've made a practice of it — the way you'd practice an instrument, badly at first, then a little better. Gratitude. Humor. Curiosity. A willingness to find one good thing in the day and let it count. I don't want to live any other way, mostly because I've tried the other way, and I have no interest in going back for a visit.
When you've lost a great deal, the small things that arrive afterward start to feel like gifts. A quiet morning. A conversation that meant something. A friend who actually picks up the phone. A sunset doing its usual show as if it were the first time. A good meal. Pipes asleep against my foot, breathing in that slow, satisfied way dogs breathe when they trust you completely. None of these would impress anyone. All of them keep me steady.
I still have to work at staying here. My mind likes to wander back into old rooms, and occasionally it wants to scout too far ahead. But the older I get, the more I understand the simple math of paying attention. You stop waiting for life to arrive and realize it has been here all along. The good moments don't last. Neither do the hard ones. Both ask to be felt without being clutched.
The Man Who Stayed
I do not need the crowd’s applause, Nor strangers saying I belong. I’ve learned to live without a cause To prove to them that I am strong.
Read the full poem →Some people find me a little whimsical, and that's fair. I'd rather meet the day with wonder than with a raised eyebrow. Cynicism is cheap and widely available; I'm not in the market. I think I'm probably happier than most — not because the road was kinder to me, but because somewhere along it I learned to value what can't be weighed or owned.
I'm still a work in progress. I expect I always will be. That used to bother me. Now it strikes me as the more honest arrangement — that we keep moving forward with a little more wisdom than we had, a little more grace, a slightly clearer view of ourselves in the mirror. That's enough. Most days, it's better than enough.
It's late afternoon as I write this. The light over the desert is doing what it does this time of year, turning everything the color of warm bread. Pipes is on the rug. I have nothing to add to the day except my attention, and I'm giving it.
If that's not happiness, it's near enough that I don't feel the need to argue the difference.
Yours, in ink and embers,
