the pursuit.

Summer days are long, and allow for much pondering. I had tea yesterday with a dear, dear friend who has offered me important guidance at transitional points in my life. She and I spent awhile discussing the value of expanding and nourishing the internal monologues we have within ourselves. And I realized something. For years of my adult life, I've given myself flack for the analytical nature of my own thoughts. It's time that I stop. Sharon helped me understand that those of us with the will and the ability to analyze ourselves, learn from our mistakes, and build the narrative map of our own lives...well, we're the lucky ones. A life unexamined, well, what would be the point of that?

I was also reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend back in Athens a few months ago. We sat on a couch and, for hours, I kid you not, ate grapes and tried to answer this question: "Will we ever be able to know, for sure, what's going to make us happy?" An empty bowl and two headaches later....we came up with a resounding "no." What makes you happy today, in this moment, that's so easy to understand! Dreams are also easy to conceptualize; in fact, they're often the beauty in the everyday. The problem lies in expending too much energy obsessing over our future selves. I can say with confidence that quite a few things that I thought would make me happy even three years ago are no longer on my radar at all. Hell, there are things I longed for three days ago that now seem like islands floating out in the abyss.

So what's the pursuit of happiness, then? I think, more than anything, it's understanding how we process our lives. It's an intimate, personal thing, coming to feel happy. It's the ability to maintain and control ourselves even amidst chaos. It's confidence. It's an understanding that life can throw us anything at all, anytime it wants. It's the knowledge that we've become the best we can be in this moment. Don't those moments feel damn good?

I think it's kind of exciting to NOT know what will attract us in the future. I adore surprises. I say, bring it on.

For the hell of it, here's a list of the things that make me really happy, right now: homegrown tomatoes (this is their peak season, they're so juicy, and you can center any meal around them), afternoons of writing (some days more fruitful than others, admittedly), iced coffee, snatching up new reads at Barnes and Noble, early evening jogs, facebook messages from friends (old and new), music exchanges, v-neck t-shirts, ball point pens, fresh notebook paper, the smell of gardenias, and organizing my photos into albums. Here's a rec, too: Sharon and I shared a pot of my favorite tea of all time, Angel's Dream. It's a blackberry and maple blend, good hot or iced. Buy some here: http://www.rauscountrystore.com/browse.cfm/4,1004.html.

Catch ya laterrrrrr.