i was happy for two hours this morning
notes on busyness
I was happy for two hours this morning. I ran the Marin bluffs wrapped in fog. Farmers gathered in a circle before their hands touched the soil. I was first to greet the chickadee and rabbit.
The mist gave me a few steps ahead as my guide. When my feet found sand, I dropped my clothes and I walked into the sea.
I wanted to stay and do handstands on the beach, perhaps capturing my humorous attempts in pictures for Danny, but I've created a life with somewhere to be.
At home now, I curl back into bed. Down the cliff, the surf plays on. Luxury, to me, is moving fast and then giving myself over to rest. Fatigue comes in waves.
An anxious voice says pleasure is unreliable. This is too much leisure. It’s a work day. What if I get used to how joyful life can be? What if it goes away? This makes a sort of sense - it is better to keep myself from joy than to hold it and have it taken away.
A great delusion of this age is that we have something to do.
This belief might serve us if the call were to vulnerability or play. But the thing we are meant to do is dominate and possess. When we value one another by what we produce, all action leads to fear.
So warped am I by the ‘lies of doing’ that I believe two hours in twenty-four is too much. Two hours to move my body as it loves. Two hours to listen to the mist. Loneliness.
Two minutes is too much if there is no time. Oh, human doing, stay busy, and you can stay safe! Happiness is out there. Keep moving.
I am proud to say that I'm a non-compliant robot. I try to do faster. Do better. But on the assembly line my hands always wander, and I find that I am still an eagle, a tower, a great song.
—
July 2024 - Marin, CA
Notes - The final sentence is no doubt inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Das Studenbuch (Book of Hours).