It’s still the little things

That make me happiest.

Waking up slowly on a Sunday morning after having had dinner with good friends the night before; picking up the bedroom after a hectic week that had me simply dropping into bed at night without a thought for the piles of papers, clothes and sundry items that one gets out over a few days; having breakfast in my pajamas (can’t remember the last time that happened); sweeping the accumulated leaves off my balcony before the snow or rain can get to them; changing the colors and photo in my kitchen; thinking of close friends and family as I finally read through recent e-mails.

December has started – I will put up lights – get out the wreaths and perhaps even get the tree up and decorated: anything to improve the dark, gray days and lighten the spirit.

I hope that all of you too will stop to enjoy those little pleasures; the ones that we tend to ignore or discount. The best of my day? Finding a crumpet in my freezer and one last piece of Stollen for breakfast when I had neglected thinking of bread or anything yesterday.

Be Happy – it’s contagious

There was another of those wonderful thoughts for the day on one of my websites: “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. -James Matthew Barrie, author (9 May 1860-1937)”.

How true – one can’t make someone else happy without its affecting one’s self in turn.

How often have our days been changed by the simple fact of someone smiling at us: showing us by word or deed that we are listened to, that we are noticed and thus that we matter? And in return, have you noticed that if you make the effort to really listen to someone, to pay a compliment or do a good deed, that your day is also brightened?

This doesn’t necessarily imply being a Pollyanna either, simply being more aware of the positives in life, of making an effort to be nice to spread the sunshine: after all in physical terms, there is more daylight (although not always with sun as well I know!) than there is darkness in most of the world, most of the year.

We drift to those who are cheery; we flee those who are constantly negative. Perhaps we should take a hard look at ourselves and loose a few of the sarcastic remarks, try and find the positive even in bad situations. If everyone made an effort to be more like the sun than the dark, we could change at least our immediate environment and the people that we make happy will in turn help us be happy.

I’m going to look for the smiles when I leave the house and am sure that if I give a few by the end of the day I will feel that it has been a good day – what more could one want?

Some beauty too perhaps? A spring walk below provided that. 

Happy, Sad

Happy that the cold wind “bise” has gone down,

Sad that it is now just shades of gray.

Happy that I am up in the mountains,

Sad that I don’t have many days.

Happy that nothing is wrong with my computer,

Sad that I had such problems with the printer yesterday.

Happy that I dreamt that I got married (same guy),

Sad that that was so long ago and now he’s gone.

Happy that I had lovely frothed milk with my coffee,

Sad that it was Marcel’s frother –he left us this spring.

Happy it's Friday (Good Friday at that), Happy it's Easter

weekend, Happy to be having Easter Sunday lunch with

friends, Happy to be going to my brother and sister-in-law's

soon, Happy to be here, happy with my life, my family and 

my friends and even with blogging.

See the “happys” do outweigh the sads!

Graffiti can be uplifting

Or there’s an exception to every rule.

Normally I am the first to complain about the graffiti that seems to cover any available space or blank wall here in Geneva.

However, one, up in my village, has had me thinking over the months that it has been on an electrical box where I tend to park every morning near the post office and bakery where I have my coffee.

It doesn’t proclaim (as is usually the case) “Be Happy”, nor exhort me to happiness: no frills, nothing but a crudely handwritten phrase requesting, nay perhaps supplicating me:

“Please be happy”.

Was it written by an elementary school child; a troubled teen; a frustrated young adult? I will probably never know – and can only hope that whoever wrote it has been able to find happiness for his or her self, that whatever burden led them to supplicate passersby to “please” be happy has since resolved itself.

If only I could let them know that his/her plea found an echo in my mind and that each day when faced with this request, I do stop and think and try to be happy.