be happy

i have been in a stressful state all week, for various reasons, but one of the biggest, of course, being a general anxiety and misery for the japanese. and yet, they have shown astonishing and admirable patience and humanity in the way they've worked together to help each other.

my dreams have consequently been likewise bizarre and uncomfortable, always too vague to leave me remembering much but a sense of uneasiness; and i keep waking up in the middle of the night, tense with the realization that the world isn't safe.

this afternoon, however, after a day of about 1% of sunlight, i was sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my back to the radiator. my cats were doing likewise, which, by the way, makes it quite crowded around the radiator. but sitting there i looked out my window and happened to see patches of blue sky, straining to break through the racing clouds. it was so small, but i confess my chest actually tightened a bit at the sight. blue sky!

generally i am a cheerful person, singing to myself while walking down the sidewalk, etc. but from habits developed from past experiences, i tend to believe that if i can control enough factors around me by analyzing (or stressing over) them to the tiniest minutiae, then nothing can ever go wrong. of course this isn't true. i remember talking to one of my dear friends about a year ago about a situation that was troubling me, and which i could not stop stressing over. she asked me why i felt the need to be so preoccupied with it, and i said (and i still admit i kind of believe this) that if i at least prepared myself for all possible outcomes of this situation, then it would save me some of the pain of rather having a shock if a negative outcome should occur.

she looked at me kindly and grinned and said "no it won't."

and she's right. it wouldn't save me. you can prepare and prepare for pain, but it's still pain. is that sad-sounding? i've realized that a kind of freedom comes from that thought, though, which is what my friend was getting at: if you can only prepare so much, then what will you do with the rest of your time?

and that answer is always easy: be happy.

so to help you be happy, here's a lovely picture of surely some of the happiest spring flowers, daffodils: