∀ This Goldfrapp song comes to mind
¶ Prompt from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.
I feel like I wrote something like this before. Basically, this week’s exercise calls for a realignment. No more extreme emotion writing, simply happy. No delusions about grandeur, epic, brooding writing. No to writing that is supposed to be filled with a certain angst, a certain depression. Just happy. Clap along.
Cameron suggests you take a one hour bubble bath, hah, before taking on this assignment. For me, to light a few candles, a sandlewood incense, to crack open my bedroom window and listen to the gentle raindrops of the gray weather outside is enough to calm me down. I love rain. I love firelight. — Now, “List fifty things that make you happy.”
Writes Cameron, “Happiness is not only a mood. It is a decision. Writing our list of fifty happinesses causes us to see how simple some forms of joy are, how we can make ourselves happy in simple ways — read the Neruda poems, eat the ice cream, take time to check out the sunsets. Happiness lists are also an effective deterrent for situational depression. When the blues set in, the simple act of listing joys can help elicit some.”
Below is my list, but before reading it, I suggest you write yours (and share it!). Here is it:
1. Warm Irish Breakfast tea in the morning
2. Yerba Mate in the afternoon
3. A good book in bed
4. Mala beads
5. Hostel lounges
6. Good conversation
7. Stranger’s smile
8. Stranger dancing in the subway
9. Being read to softly
10. Many candles lit, especially prayer candles
11. Stain glass windows, when light starts to enter
12. Beach House, band
13. Nylon string guitar played well
14. Sundays
15. Left over food that still tastes good
16. A cold beer, just one, when “I’m not supposed to”
17. Origami boxes
18. Rain
19. Sharing my work
20. The rush of writing a new idea
21. The plateau of writing all day
22. The fall of finishing a story
23. Walkabouts by myself
24. Live music played well, played soulfully
25. Mango ice cream with a hidden scoop of raspberry underneath
26. Birthdays
27. That “ohh” moment on a student
28. Seeing someone act a little too self-confident, and feeling it rub off on me
29. My aloe and ivy plants, watering them, looking at them, a-hem…
30. Music videos, watching them, finding new ones
31. Sigur Ros, band, anywhere and anytime
32. Dancing at Barbarella, (barbs), club
33. Edibles, hah
34. Not working out, but being done working out
35. Running, during
36. The beach, rain or shine
37. Fresh snow, skis
38. One of the greatest “happinesses” I have ever known, sailing alone in an optimist
39. Staying up all night with good people
40. Bring a flask to a public event, even if I don’t drink, so long as it was full when I got there
41. Waking up with someone special
42. The smell of my grandparent’s apartment
43. Dollar slice of pizza
44. Finishing something important
45. Rereading these posts
46. Friendly people on a plane
47. A good sunrise
48. A bed made
49. Ironed shirts and dryer-warm pants
50. Seeing Argentina win
