Happinesses

I've nothing in particular to share with you good people tonight. Perhaps I could take the wisps of pink that hung low in the sky, roll them up like ribbons, and present them to you--you could trim your hat with sunset tomorrow, tie up some late zinnias, wrap it around your wrist--your pulse would pump under this evening's prenight colors.

My mother is off on a pwane as Bea says. What a good mother she is, and not only because she helps me in a myriad of ways. She is an avid reader, a brilliant conversationalist, a word-smith extraordinaire, and she tends to give as a way of life. She's always got her fork and knife poised to devour a new idea or our new stories or poems. And Martin articulated something about her that I hadn't really put my finger on yet: One great thing about your mother, he said, Is she really believes in love between spouses, and she does everything in her power to celebrate that. He pointed to my mother's parents, who lost love early in their marriage, and then to my mother and father's marriage, which has been marked by dynamic, nurturing, and at times, giddy love.

My mother is a big fan of Martin, and though I already tend to think he's the cat's meow, she makes sure I know he's no puny meow but a big roar of a man. I've always known she's a big fan of mine, and she is an advocate for continuing da love between Martin and me--she pushes us out the door for walks, presses a check into my hand and sends us out to dinner. She's a good sort, my mother. I'm a big fan of hers--can you tell? And continuing to admire your parents after thirty-something years is no small thing.

For some reason, I just remembered a senior writing class in college where a classmate of mine critiqued my essay on the basis of the speaker coming across as too happy (the speaker was me). That has been my problem for years now--I'm too dark on one end of the market and too happy for the other end (I just got three short pieces of fiction accepted at Prick of the Spindle so I must have struck the right balance for them, anyway). And I try to continue as a fairly happy person--much of this is due to my good, good life and much is due to my eternally optimistic personality--but I've also been learning to seize the happinesses that pass by me, enjoy them with as much relish as I can muster, and then--ideally--understand that my hands must stay open for them to pass. Bea on my bed tonight as we read books: a great happiness almost too lovely to bear--she's growing so quickly and someday she will be happiness for other people, not just her dear family.

I'm teetering on the dangerous edge of melancholy so I'll end by cataloguing these few but enormous joys: my mother, father, siblings, children, husband. A feather duvet, summer's last tomatoes, autumn in the air. The first apple of September; dear, dear friends, belly laughs. The creak of my front door, the sound of footsteps. What are your glorious happinesses tonight?