Did I ever think I’d get to a point in life when I would just simply be happy for no particular reason?
I used to think happiness depended on some thing; some mythical future state that would lead me to planet Bliss. It begins in the teen years: a vision of romance, true love, from film star crushes to actual boys (I am being personal here). It morphs into ambition with a bit of the other on the side, then the perfect match with whom you can share your life: a solid, reliable love-you-forever type, with all the trimmings.
Hmmm.
As I walked I reflected on the seasons of life and I got it! I really got it: Not the special relationships, the career; or, later, the self-improvement groups, meditations and taoist practices..all aimed at becoming a perfectly balanced, back to factory settings type. None of those. Nothing (and I’d worn all the tee shirts) with an agenda attached could ever make me happy!
What agenda can I have with the air, the weather the sun, rain, clouds, the leaves on the trees and the flowers thrusting their necks out of their stalks? Nothing is asked of me and I ask nothing of it.
Sometimes it takes a lifetime to be at ease with you, just as you are, as the large green plant, an ungainly and utterly beautiful stoic on the footpath, is simply its own unselfconscious, unique self.
We see everything in fragments – like glimpses through the gaps in fences: Houses, gardens, washing on the line, the imagined lives inside. Storylines criss-crossing. Being a passer-by can be exhilarating just because nobody else’s life can ever be yours. The one you’ve got is the one you have.
There is nothing more glorious than being part of the natural world. When you simply show up as you are the whole vista of life lays itself out before you as you pass by.
This is planet Bliss!
