Small But Certain Happiness

Last week I shared on the theme of ‘small but certain happiness’ as an invitation to let simple, everyday joys you don’t have to strive for or earn in. If you missed it, I also wrote this newsletter where I unpacked this theme and shared about the source of my inspiration.

You may find in times that feel hard, uncertain, unsettling, and despair-ridden, that simple joys appear trivial. Leaning in may make you feel guilty. Or, you might not even notice what there is to lean into. Your mind could be racing around with worry or confusion or dread, so you wind up bypassing the little wonders that abound around you right now. What if your simplest joy is actually a return to the very life-giving grace that carries and sustains you through?

Small but certain happiness (SBCH) asks you to slow down and take a look around where you are right now. Let some simple, certain joy stream in. It could be belting it out in the shower, savoring a spoonful of honey, snuggling up with your animal companion, or getting nose deep in your favorite spring bloom. The Nootka Rose is in full bloom in Bellingham today and I stopped and breathed in her earthy-cinnamon swirl of aroma. Later I curled up with my canine soul sister Wren for a too-brief period of time, feeling her body and mine soften. Right now as I sit typing I am feeling the tingle of my aliveness in my hands, post-gardening.

The practice of SBCH has reminded me that my mind, body, and heart are actually designed for me to experience joy, so why not let joy in, and daily? It’s not to negate or turn away from the reality of the hardship, devastation, grief, and anger many of us face and hold. SBCH isn’t about us ignoring or stuffing anything inside. It’s about opening up and simply recognizing we can move through what is hard without ourselves hardening. We can be real with what’s happening around us and remain receptive to what is joyful, sweet, kind. SBCH becomes a quite powerful practice of becoming present, calm and receptive. Turn your attention to something, anything, you don’t have to reach for that sparks joy.

Here are a few poems that have been like a balm to me so far this year and some recent moments of SBCH.

For When People Ask | by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

The Peace of Wild Things | by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Morning After | by Maya Stein

Again another chance to praise the same room, the same floor, the same view, the same tea, the same image in the mirror, which today is startlingly not the same. Again the chance to find the miracle in the flowers that bloom, the miracle in the morning sun, the miracle in the willows beside the pond. Again the chance to fall in love with the same sky, the same field, the same dirt, the same broken world. Again the chance to show up with these same tired arms and put them to work, the same as yesterday, which is to learn to lift up, to heal, to carry, to build, to be in the world, to praise the same room, same floor, same view, same tea.

Don’t Hesitate | by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

The Question | by Tara Brach

All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of these words as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path to love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this?
Is this the path of love? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.