Back To The Now

The last few posts have been about looking inside ourselves, to see what we find. Although it's important to reflect in these ways, it's perhaps even more important to get back to the now, look outside our amazing minds, and see what's there to enjoy. There is usually a lot, if we look carefully. If we forget about the horrible state of our gardens that need desperate weeding, the horrible state of our world that we feel helpless about, and can't just go out with a trowel and put to rights (oh, if only!), we can most often find very familiar things around us that bring us joy. After all, why are we here, but to find happiness where we can? I didn't make that up. Aristotle said it, the Dalai Lama says it, we're here to learn the habit of happiness. And we can find it now, in inexplicable places, like our kitchen when we make a peach pie, in our dog's faces, in the car when we're driving to work and we see a woman walking down the street wearing a golden sari, or a large purple hat with peacock feathers waving above it. We can find it wherever we happen to be, right now.
So, go Back To The Now. What do you see, right now where you are? (Or wait a little while, and ask yourself this question when you're ready with your Happiness Book and a pen). You don't have to be anywhere special for this exercise. Your backyard or your rooftop or your office or waiting in the car to pick up the kids from day camp. Look around you. There are probably at least ten things to delight you wherever you are in the now.
I am, as usual, at the library. A little girl sits next to me at her computer, playing video games. Her feet tap, her shoulders scrunch with concentration, and every now and then, she nearly jumps out of her seat when she defeats a foe, finds the hidden Barbie, or something equally exciting on the screen happens. I can feel her joy,and although I think video games are mind-numbing pablum, she doesn't. She's just having some fun, and I can appreciate that, and catch some of it, just from the energy she's throwing around. Then the sounds of the library delight me, the hushed voices, the humming of the computers, the sound of the printer printing out book return receipts. It is all incredibly familiar and soothing to me. People walk by with books clutched to their chests, as if they are new lovers, just waiting for the time when they can get home and be transported by their new book, their love. (Why do people do this, this book clutching thing, pressing books to their hearts? We all do it, the book-lovers among us. We don't clutch a head of lettuce to our hearts in the supermarket, or a pair of jeans from the Gap.)
The books on the shelves themselves give me untold joy, in anticipation, expectation of new worlds, new thoughts, and just the colors of them, the textures of their covers and pages...
I could go on, but you get the idea. So write your now, draw it, take joy in it, clutch it to your heart.