Thursday
The water is dark. I don’t know how to be happy. I know how to look happy. I know how to act happy. I know how happy people behave..... Or do I? Maybe those people are acting happy as well and the second they get home, as they remove their shoes, they take off the happy. It’s a mask, maybe, or a full on suit. It’s a laugh or a pat on the shoulder. It says “You’re killing me!” Or “You really said that? Braver man than I, that’s for sure!!”
It’s exhausting. And people don’t know you, but they think they do, right? They think you’re funny and jovial and relatable. They think you’re smart, maybe, but they feel more intelligent than you because we let them think that. It’s easier. Less talking that way, unless they let it slip somehow, verbally, with their body language, that the feel they’ve got you on the ropes, well, then it’s a quick condescending snap, barely noticeable, they think “What did he/she mean by that? Should I be upset?” And they’ll think about it for the rest of the day. Maybe ask their wife, who will tell them it’s fine. They took it the wrong way. But she didn’t see you steel your eyes, turn your shoulders forward, set your neck just so, the tone in your voice, before you, just as quickly, laugh it off.... But it was there.....
The people who are happy people like slapstick comedy. It doesn’t require keeping up or thinking. Just trip down the stair, stick your foot in a toy, fall down into the door just as someone is opening it and slide down the back. Ha ha.
I wish that was me, on one hand, I’m glad it’s not on the other. I love a person who gets dark humor, sarcasm, who doesn’t care if it’s “too soon?”
There are things that make me happy. The birth of my grandson. Seeing my kids as parents. My YM who is as dry and deadpan as they come, so is the oldest boy. The youngest one is becoming that way as well. Snow, Christmas lights, Christmas songs, the coolish breeze on a summer night, the wind in my hair, a song that takes me to a different time or a smell that reminds me of something small that I still cherish. Not long ago there was a smell in the breeze coming from the creek and the trees and it smelled like my hometown on a summer night. I closed my eyes and took it in. I was asked if I was ready to go.... No, not yet..... it smells like camping on our deck with Rob and his brother and my brother and sleeping bags and.... mmmmmmmm, Happy in that moment. Mmmmmmmm.... I wanted to stand there for as long as the smell blew softly by my face, to be 15, in some of the hardest times of my life, but where I found happiness and to breathe the happiness into my lungs as long as I possibly could.....
Or jumping into a car with a vanilla scented car deodorizer, if I smell that vanilla smell I close my eyes. Feel my heart beat out of my chest, nowhere else in the whole entire world that I wanted to be. Red leather, the sound, the crinkle, the coldness on the back of my knees, shorts on, mmmmmmmmm
Little chunks of real happiness.
Playing poker, the smell of Doug’s cigarette, me drinking a Fresca, sometimes I’ll get the far away whiff of that cigarette, just enough to yank me from where I am into a chair at a kitchen table, “what ya want to play, Trace?” “Doesn’t matter, I’ll kick your ass at anything you choose” his laughter “ Do you hear this shit?” He’d say to my husband and his girlfriend. Happy.
A song.... 867-5309....
Hey, hey Micki! You’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Micki!
I reach down, between my legs, slide the seat back....
Don’t forget me when I’m gone. For heaven’s sake..
So many songs. I love that. The ability to feel what you felt one time during that song.... Happy.
When will the water get less deep? Less black?
I’m trying to hold on to something in the water. Just float. Tell. No one. Look happy. Wear the happy suit.
Tracy
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