reach out and grab that happy

_{^{<Illustration by Tel Aviv artist Yuval Robichek>}}

I don’t usually post two days in a row. Yesterday’s somber deconstruction of conflicting raw emotions demanded from today, however, some little upswell of positivity, at the very least. As did I, as well.

This aims itself in that direction. I hope it comes close to hitting its mark.

Sometimes, life. Just life.

And there’s nothing for it then, but to try to push back the ugly, whatever that new outward ugly, which can too often cruelly intersect the longtime dark internal ugly, if you are unblessed to carry such around with you.

I do not wish to use the “D” word here. Because that’s just depressing. Ha, ha.

I’m not delusional, though. I know all too well that nothing fixes what’s bad enough, and it’s never going to. The pains. The sickness. The loss, often unfathomable loss. Things break, permanently break, including dreams. Things shatter, sometimes including our very selves.

And then you’re circling that hole, that awful hole, and if you trip, if you fall in, fuck. Because that hole then too easily becomes you. After long enough, it swallows you whole.

And if you know this about yourself, then when you first find yourself sinking, you start the fight, right then. You fight to get out, or else you don’t.

My yesterday was this, a stumble, a tumble, a fall. Yet today, it’s tomorrow. And I don’t mean that to be but so clever. It took work to get back even to here, which is still not quite where happy lives. You keep trying, though. You keep pushing out past the ugly. Because even a little happier is still a bit of happy.

It’s an intolerably tough nut at times, searching for something to bright you back up. Yet your day, your yesterday, in fact, sometimes your whole week, your ungodly lousy year, oh, that longtime dark internal ugly, your unquiet life, demands it.

So you reach out blindly, try to pull a hint of happy straight out of the air, if you can, a patch of unbroken sun through a slit in an overcast sky. You crawl, if you must, around corners to find it, bloody knees a badge of honor, no pain, no gain, no happy.

You will, once in that hole, even with just a foot caught in there, at first fail far more than you will actually find happy. Because you are right then squarely in the mindset to see exactly its opposite, moving right past it, seeing instead that one dark cloud in a blue- bright sky, the rancid litter wrapped around the stalk of the sun-burst sunflower. The choice is to quit, or to look harder, damn harder.

By looking, I mean you put yourself out there, into places where in the past the happy found you, even fleetingly, where maybe it can find you now, those little scraps of joy hidden in plain sight, the beautiful cracks in everything, as the great Leonard Cohen had it, where the light gets in.

A rocking-chair porch and an upstart summer storm; a languid cut from Astral Weeks seeping sweet sound syrup from a half-open apartment window; a sudden-swooping hummingbird at the edge of a Rose of Sharon flower; an unbroken seascape, fish-diving pelicans in the distance; an updraft of fall leaves like some fleeting ballerina dancing in air; the soul-settling susurration of evening wind through a stand of dry-frond palms; a cat’s half-smile and insistent paw, that certain fluffy someone who needs a touch more attention; a warm, wet puppy nose, and the musky-sweet breath of newness; a friend; a forest; a flock of field crows flighting upwards as one; a lover’s touch, a love’s rejoinder; a cold hand holding a hot cup of real cocoa; a bowl of lemon-peppered purple popcorn fresh-popped in olive-avocado oil.

You drag that first piece down into that hole with you, and then, you reach out once more, you crawl forth, you fucking do it again. You do it as much as you must, till there’s enough of a floor beneath you that you can claw your downed ass out of that sinking, stinking pit of awful, up out again, into the open, where there’s air, unfettered air. Where the happy, if you let it, is now better able to find you.

Because it doesn’t matter from where the happy comes, so long as it comes.

Of course, if you get a thrill from hurting others, then seriously, fuck your happy. Find a better happy.

I’m not presuming to tell you how to fix yourself, by the way. I’m telling me. This is the gist of my inner voice whispering at me, on days like yesterday. Sometimes the meditation takes, sometimes, not as much. Not all mantras are om. Not all fixes are neat.

So anyway, you go. Literally, off you go. Because what else? Do you just stay there sitting with yourself? You ain’t exactly the dandiest damn company, know it?

Frank, to self: Hey, you, uh, ya wanna hang a bit?

Frank, to Frank: What, you’re kidding, right? I’d rather be poked in the eye with a pointy stick.

Frank, the first Frank, to self, the second Frank, pushing glasses closer to eyes, glancing about for said mean pointy pokey: So, I’ll just let myself out, then …

And there you are, looking, even harder, that day that started badly, in search of a better ending.

I walked first last evening around the corner for a check-in with an out-of-town friend’s sweet and chatty little cat, a nice start to anything, setting out then on a 3-mile trek that would land me halfway at a pint of local crafted draft, a fine English pub-style ale, to hopefully impart a touch of cozy bar happy, and a good brew’s lingering enchantment. One-and-done, the prize imbibed, I hoofed it home a different way in the gathering dusk, basking in the faintest hint of hopped-up magic, and hopefully sweating out some of the day’s mental poison.

Arriving back home, I played some with the pups, ever a good decision. Once showered, I then prepped a homemade oven-baked iron-skillet pizza, black olives, green olives, mushrooms, artichokes, mucho cheeses, hallelujah, listening to a little early Little Feet, because those first feets were happy feets.

I savored then a couple slices of piping-hot cheesy pie, sipping some Italian red, and watching a fun thing from my past, a fun thing with fuzzy pink feet. Then it was late, time to turn in, a little light reading, with four snoozy cats peopling the bedcovers around me.

Did any of it help? It sure as hell didn’t hurt. And some days, those unfortunate sometimes days, that’s just enough. You get your head up, eyes above the hole, and see again a hint of that whole wide world beyond you.

Take it where you can, kids. Joy where it can find you, and wherever you can find it.