Affairs have proven a bit bumpy lately.
Layoffs.
Cancer.
Lease takeovers.
Family squabbles.
Looking for life direction…
To name a few.
The fact of the matter, which is so ironically beautiful about all the craziness is: We have a choice. Happiness.
Now as I write this, it is not to say I have not spent a day or two in the pits of trepidation because I have, and its odor’s foul, its grasp crippling. Stress crawls up my spine and I want to yell into the streets, “EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE!” My neighbor sees it in my face. My mom hears it my voice over the lines of the telephone. Plans change so quickly from one moment to the next that there seems no plan, and those around us want to know what course of action we are going to take. I don’t have a plan etched in concrete. How am I suppose to hand one over to you? “You’re in the dark sister?” That makes us the happy couple with a blindfold on.
Circumstances change. Change is the way of the world. I must put my big-girl pants on as challenges ensue. And when I do, it is of benefit to slap a smile across my face too. Happiness doesn’t wait for perfect, unchanging circumstances. Happiness is the gift of the present. I am responsible for unwrapping the gift and wearing its bow around my head instead of donning the look of dread.
So put my big-girl pants on I did, and my scarf, gloves, boots… winter head wrap, all for a trek into the city to whip up a bit of happiness out of the scrambled rut my partner and I had been in. We Metro’d (my new favorite way to travel) into the District of Columbia. We were going to lose ourselves in art and invention. Our first stop was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Sensory overload took its course, and among the bustle which is a crowded museum, the most impactful display for the both of us was the model of the solar system. It is incredible just how small we are in the scheme of things. My problems are nothing when Earth is minute compared to Jupiter.
Next we journeyed to The National Gallery of Art. I love Art Galleries. They remind me of my passion for the creative. The pieces convey stories I could easily lose myself in. The stare of paintings dating back hundreds of years further evokes the magnitude of existence. All time is one. My William found himself his favored painting. Upon his discovery he literally gasped in inspiration. The piece called, The Juniata, Evening by Thomas Moran depicts a serene mountain range opening itself up into a luscious valley. At the opening of the valley stands a painter painting the scene viewed in the painting. Theoretically, inside the painter’s painting, there is another painter painting the very same picture, and so on. The idea expands infinitely. Boom.
All time is one.
I walk into one of the last rooms of the East wing of the classically magnificent gallery and to my astonishment my eyes found my picture. And when I say my picture, I mean the painting William sent me a photo of months back. Little Girl in a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt depicts a dog that looks just like my Mr. Yorkie. If I believed in past lives (and I do), I’d say the photo is of me as a girl with my Mr. Yorkie 136 years ago. Uncoincidentally, that very morning I shared with William my notion that Mr. Yorkie and I had lived another life together and we had found each other once more. It was a Utopian occurrence. Neither William nor myself felt inclined to explore the other wing of the gallery. We had met the climax. Everything was copacetic.
And so it goes… with everything falling in the order it should fall, finding Universal perfection in our perfectly bumpy human adventure. That is something worth being thankful for.