Sharing the Happy

This morning my son ran to my bed, jumped in and snuggled with me. He bent his head back, looked up into my eyes and beamed. "Mommy, you make me happy every day and all the time."
My eyes welled up and my heart warmed and swelled until I felt like a beach ball in the hot sun.
What was instantly there for me was not all the moments that I made him happy, but the enormity of his generosity and choice to not let times I did not make him happy ruin his perception of being happy.
God knows there where those times! The crying fits and screaming rages, the "just a minute's" and outright "NO!"'s.
But he chose to declare his life was filled with "happy all the time," to remember those moments and to make our current moment, the present, happier with his choice.

He remembered the giggling moments, trike riding moments, and reading together moments; the times we laugh and play and snuggle moments. He chose to love me including every moment and make them all part of happy.

Because being together is being happy and those together times include ups and downs, anger and joy. The choice of togetherness, embracing all those moments, being able to be with them, is what makes up happiness.

Recently I had a falling out with a friend. We misunderstood somethings that happened. She did something that hurt and shocked me and I did something that hurt and shocked her, and not necessarily in that order. The hurt lasted longer than I expected and we hashed it out for quite a while. And in the midst of the worst of it all, just when I thought we could no longer be friends, the opposite of that misery flashed itself in my memory like the glistening of a coin in a fountain. Those moments when we were laughing until I almost peed my pants, the moments when we called eachother first thing in the morning and spoke to eachother just before bed, the moments when we screamed with joy about our day together and I felt like she was my sister and best friend, sent like an angel from heaven.
I remembered those moments and knew that is who we truly were for eachother. I chose to remember those times.
We resolved all our misunderstandings. What we choose is to live happy with our friendship because we value that more.
The most challenging and difficult times can actually show us what we truly value.

So I look at challenging times to ask myself, what is it that really matters to me?
To Bronson, it is to love his Momma. Thank God, because I love him so too. I love all my boys so much I would do watever it takes to be healthy for them. See, I have recently seen that working as much as I do on the cause of health and freedom in America has left me with fatigue and inability to function as I would like. My health is seriously being impacted. I am letting the challenge and difficulty of the times take away the happy.
That is not what I am commited to. I choose the happy. I value health. So that means rest, sleep, love, laughter, fun, writing, art, walking, yoga and eating healthy food I love. Being inspired by life!
My expression of being inspired by life is writing or making art.
So I promise to make art or write everyday for the next two weeks. And share them, share the happy.
Thank you for being people with whom I can share the happy.
Love,
Zen

Know Thy Neighbor

Living in New York City was like living in a pinball machine. Fun, exciting and always trying to score big. In my twenties I bounced from place to place, moving 12 times in 9 years and lived all over Manhattan and Queens. In each place I never really got to know my neighbors. And this was the norm in NYC. I only had one friend who knew her neighbors and she was an especially outgoing and quirky person. She was not the norm. She lived on the street with the Hells Angels and figured out that if she befriended them, they would look out for her and they did. The whole situation was not the norm.

In NYC I didn't get to know my neighbors, usually, because they could be borderline insane asylum or OCD or creepy stalker type and not having any connection at all was just safer. I went in and out of my apartment and was relived if I didn't have to squeeze past and avoid eye contact with someone who smelled like another countries dirty socks. I did not make eye contact in New York City. If I did it was almost intrusive or too much of an invitation to connect in a way that could be threatening. If it was a homeless person asking for money, for sure I would be out a couple of dollars (which meant lunch to a starving student) and subway ride where I had inhale their pee stench for twenty minutes. Or, in the case of my friend, one wrong look and a homeless person my throw an air conditioner at your head and almost kill you. If it was an older man, I might get groped, younger man and he might follow me for three blocks making noises about my butt. Make eye contact with a women with kids and I might get assaulted with her eyes in defense of her parenting methods and then have to listen to her yell louder at her poor kids for twenty blocks. Pre-teen boy and he might pretend to vomit on me and give me a minor heart attack before I even start my day (actually happened). People kept to themselves unless it was a networking situation or private party and some assurance of connection to sanity was present.
Never mind getting to know my neighbor. Hell no. They lived right above or below or beside me, for God's sake and if I got to know them and they were crazy, then I was stuck with this awful fear or resentment for as long as I lived there, which could be almost a year! Ugh...too awful.
But I lived in NYC for what was possible, for the growth in art, fashion, creative nightlife and celebration of cultures during the day time street fairs. New York City is the greatest city in the world, including the crazies.I knew alot of amazing people there, I just didn't get to know my neighbors.

In California, we didn't get to know our neighbors for a long time either. Sticking to ourselves, going in and out of the carport and into the perfectly maintained beige condo, was just too easy to never come in contact with anyone. Eventually, like people who have dogs, we walked around our neighborhood with our kids and were faced with greeting people and connecting. Eventually, I transformed my relationship with community, and stopped seeing the word "community" like I did "taxes"...like something I had to put up with, and began seeing opportunity to connect. The easy going California sun and family lifestyle helped too...I joined the Moms Club and met actual neighbors with kids around the corner from me. I began to stock my freezer with Popsicles and ice cream so I could offer it to passing neighbors and suddenly we had real friends. And they weren't crazy.
We even threw a block party...my kids and I went door to door with color flyers I made and 80 people gathered in the center green on sultry summer night. We shared food from different cultures and our kids got to feel connected to our neighborhood. One neighbor said that he had lived there for 15 years and had never met the neighbors. My heart was full from the acknowledgement of creating connection with our neighbors.

In our neighborhood now, bigger homes with front yards and back yard pools, we definitely know our neighbors. We had a house warming party, go visit our neighbors and swim with them and stop and talk with everyone we meet. Last night we saw some neighbors down the street and ran over to greet and talk with them and I was so delighted to see them. One of them is cultured, kind and brilliant laywer, and we share a crafty sewing interest and recently had "Ruffles and Chocolate" morning, when we made chocolate and ruffle tee shirts. I see years of creativity ahead of us. The other is a newly married couple and one needed a job that my husband might be able to help with. Another is just a sweet and lovely person, and a Eurasian stay at home mom like me, and we have a lot in common around health and food as well. Another is an older couple which loves to make cookies, fly remote control airplanes and take care of our plants. Other have yard sales and are handy men. Very helpful.

I get now, that our neighbors make up our lives, our community, which we are a part of. It takes vulnerability to reach out and know them and a trust in humanity. And I find that when we trust in humanity, we are rewarded. We may get some crazies, but for the most part, we get warmth, connection, celebration and fun.

It's almost the end of summer, get out and Know Thy Neighbor! Throw a block party or BBQ...you will get to know a greater world and a greater you.

http://pa-rty.com/block-party-ideas-2

Zen Honeycutt