Rakabudiswa: 26.01.2020
Happiness
Is it the gentle whisper of the rain, letting its stories flow down the window in its own language? Is it the memories of yesterday that inspire tomorrow with a loving kiss in the present moment? Maybe it's the repetitive melody in your head that you can't resist and that fascinates you with its effect, because it gently imprints the best time of your life into the rhythm of your heart, over and over again.
It's the words from another time that come to your mind in this moment and for which you are grateful, because they are omnipresent. It's the moments you remember, the ones that have brought you to where you are today, that have connected you. Connected you with friends and strangers, and with yourself, which are priceless. It's the contemplation and silence after a conversation that visits you as soon as you are alone with yourself and makes you think. The sounds and vowels of its content that get under your skin, give you the feeling that you don't want to trade with anyone else, because no one but you, you know, will feel them and attach this value to them, which is so precious to you. Is it the love for detail, although or precisely because there is war everywhere in the world? The joy of a butterfly or ladybug that has lost its way in your garden or living room. And do you know if this coincidence wasn't meant for you? The randomness of meeting a person you've never seen before and sharing the mundane and routine with them for a certain time, of which you had not the slightest inkling of days or years before, is perhaps also the magic of happiness, for which you decided in just one moment, consciously or unconsciously. All the encounters at certain times, which have already taken place in your life and which are yet to come, may be part of the larger whole that you call your life and that you report to others. They are the moments when doors open, showing you a different chance and a completely new path to take.
Is happiness experienced when it is connected to self-love or an experience that it conveys to multiply it? Is happiness when you have someone with whom you can laugh at the oddity of the world, who knows you inside out and who always listens and is accessible to you at all times? Is it the person you have known for years, or the one you are just starting to share your story and theirs with, and with whom you have the same dreams, even though you are so different?
Does happiness lie even more in the moments you spend alone with yourself and that always remind you of all the beauty and also sadness within you, but still lead you further towards yourself? Is it the night that never ended and whose colors you still feel inside you, or the morning that made you realize that there is so much more you should be willing to experience. Was it the nature of the person opposite you that reminded you of the sun in your heart and called it forth? The light of the cities you have already seen and traveled to and immersed yourself in, without knowing what they would teach you and show you, even before your final decision to devote yourself to them with everything. Another time it is the look in the mirror that draws your attention to the sparkle and/or the veil in your eyes, which you hadn't noticed before and towards whose story you have such anticipation and awe. Half a year ago it was the gaze of the woman who looked at you and to whom you didn't have to explain anything. In two years, it may be the firmament above you that gives your fulfilled dream its most beautiful view and makes everything appear in a different light under a shower of shooting stars. And from yesterday to today, it is the night of dancing, when time seemed to stand still. The moment when everyone felt connected as the music met the senses and water and laughter charged each other energetically in sound waves. Later, when the sun stole the day back and the first joggers came around the bend, as we walked hand in hand along the river, and then you gave me the kiss of my life, my worldview of good and evil fell apart, and once again I understood why loneliness is necessary and why it is what adorns love with all its senses.
It is the ring on your left hand that you bought eight years ago after the summer storm in Paris. At that time, it was the smile next to you that made you feel the happiness that sweetened your awakening every morning. And when you painted our walls blue and we started and loved body painting in the moment, I felt the happiness on your skin that never stopped laughing.
In a dream, it is the timeless landscape image of forgotten streets and smells from your childhood that reveals and brings you happiness, so close that your heart finds its heartbeat again. And your strength has also found itself again, every time we hear each other without words and the two of us are together, even though we are alone, because our souls sense each other boundlessly in the feeling that is our freedom. Today, here, and since yesterday also in the morning that retrieves the future from the past, our graffiti still exists in four weeks. It is the day of the year that opens the world and opens your eyes within a second by sending someone to you whom you didn't expect. Or it is something that suddenly appears and that you follow because you have no other choice, and it changes your life.
Sometimes it's the inner voice that makes you do something whose meaning you only grasp later. You feel it when you are in the woods and by the sea, when the morning dew kisses the silence, and in the evenings when you have tea with a friend and your words meet in the flow of your stories, where gazes reflect your shared years. When you hold the hand of an elderly person and listen to them, and you see their eyes light up or shine. The happiness of hearing their story and giving this person your attention visits you with gratitude.
Being at home and coming home is happiness, and being far away, where a stranger becomes a confidant because you have reached out your hand to her, and it multiplies into moments that reveal photos to you, which you like to look back on. The searching and finding, which is much more about being on the way, is what offers you happiness and abundance with devotion, and the moment when you suddenly realize that life has always shown and indicated its paths to you in inexplicable ways, even when you thought you were not on them. It is also the feeling of the sand under your feet, while the sun slowly sinks into the sea. When you listen to the sound of the waves and follow seagulls in the sky, their cries carried by the wind, up to the horizon and beyond. The sparkle of the water at your feet, which you see as a source and which makes you love the here and now. The first awakening in spring, awakened by the singing of the birds that greet the day. Getting off the plane and smelling home. Breathing in its air and its colors and hearing and seeing its rain, which feels like earthly water on the skin. Enjoying the beauty of the moment and being aware of its special value, which makes it what it is: one of those moments that carry your life and shape you in this special way that can hardly be described in words.
It's like being in love, bringing out the most beautiful and powerful within you and giving you everything that makes you feel complete. It is the love that speaks to and touches your self-love and gives you a touch of infinite humanity towards yourself. The feeling of feeling free and healthy again after being sick. Being happy and grateful for food and drink and for having a roof over your head. The feeling of belonging as far as family is concerned, or feeling it with friends. Even more so with yourself.
Happiness manifests itself in so many different ways and is so multifaceted, yet every person knows what it means when it comes to the concept of happiness, no matter who we are, what we are to each other, and where we come from. There is a basic mood of happiness that is common and familiar to all of us and for which we all long and from which we nourish ourselves in equal measure. The feeling that happiness conveys to us is the feeling of arrival. Where you find and feel peace and joy. It is a state of being that is carefree and light, that is timeless and unburdened, and that gives satisfaction combined with power. Happiness brings out the best in you, which you no longer want to be without, and enables you to love unconditionally, which we are open to and which we pass on. The energy of happiness is boundless and generous and always connected with gratitude.