I took a yoga class this morning with my mom, matt and our friend cody. it was in this beautiful barn that overlooked a field, with the windows open and the breeze filling the room throughout the class. we could even hear birds chirping the whole time! at the end of class, the instructor read us a poem. it really connected to how i am feeling today, and this entire week. we are always finding ways to “be happy” and to avoid sadness, but we are never taught ways to accept good fortune, and to be grateful for all of the good in our lives.
So Much Happiness Naomi Shihab Nye
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit,
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.
