The sparser the innate joy that springs from being alive, the more fervently we seek joy’s pale substitute, pleasure.
-Gabor Maté (2008), In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
The dozen roses on the coffee table are the faintest coral, their petals sheer and delicate, more thin, flimsy parchment than flower. The colors fade toward the innermost sanctum, from coral to blush to the palest antique ivory. Colors so infrequently used that their names are found only in the 128-piece Crayola Box. They’re stunning. The color so rich and subdued, as if a dozen long-stem roses of any color can be called subdued. They’re like fine hand-painted china found only in an antique store or in a grandparent’s china cupboard, a kind of lovely eschewed in the present day clamor for bolder colors, bolder shapes, declarative acts rather than suggestive ones.
I do not come from a long line of subtle, suggestive people. My people hail from the opinionated genetic pool, priding themselves on coming from strong stock. They worked hard, laughed hard, did the right thing. There is a right way to do things, a right way to drive from one destination to another, a right time to arrive, a right way to fold laundry, a right way to hold your fork and knife, a right way to feel about events, a right candidate in every election. It made the times when someone did the wrong thing almost unbearable, as there was so little expectation of error or going against the grain that each time we had to learn anew what to do. I wonder if an excavation of our back yard would exhume not only the family dog, buried with her leash and collar, but buried mistakes and alternative ideas, too.
For years, well, really, for decades, I mistook this kind of certainty for knowing something. I figured if I could attain the same kind of certainty, I’d have it made.
Alas, I’m a doubter. Even after I’ve weighed my options, even after I’ve selected a course of action. I am no more subtle than anyone in my family, but I have found a way to mix boldness with uncertainty, strength without ever fully believing I am right. I’m the one in the family seeking – and experiencing – moments of joy, whereas everyone else is settling for fleeting pleasure.
My husband gave me the pale roses in the first week of February, unaware that Valentine’s Day was coming. They were not meant to be a substitute for what I would receive on Valentine’s Day; at least I’m pretty sure they weren’t. They gave me joy, even though my husband wanted them to make me happy. I’m a little less interested in happy, though. I figure it comes and it goes, this feeling called happiness, and I’m done chasing it. I’m done assuming that when I’m done with _______ or when I finally complete _________ or once I attain ________ that there is any “happy” there. These days, I’m seeking peacefulness. I’m seeking ease. I want to sit back in a comfy chair and feel full up inside. With gratitude and joy and contentment and purpose.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a good belly laugh and pale roses and moments of sensual pleasure and the perfectly butter-soaked popcorn kernel. I like pleasure. It’s just not enough for me anymore.
I want what’s behind door number 2. So instead of chasing more happiness, more moments of pleasure, an endeavor most of the consumer society around me wishes I’d continue, I’m going for joy. But joy’s tricky. It’s here, right here, underneath all the efforts to grab it. Joy, protected by the rose’s thorns, requires a slow, tender approach, the reaching through and under and around the thorns in order to hold it delicately without piercing our own flesh or crushing its beauty.
Happiness is as elusive as the opalescent hummingbird that alights at my feeder and is gone before I can ever get my camera turned on; happiness is as skittish as the neighborhood cat who, looking like it was wearing an oversized Halloween lion costume, came and meowed at my glass front door, but sprang away before getting its treat when I opened the door. Pleasure is as fleeting as the orgasmic sigh from dark chocolate or the perfect touch of my husband’s fingers.
But contentment. It lasts as long as I allow my gaze to linger on the pale roses. It lasts while my son drops off to sleep with his head in my lap, a treat that is getting rarer in these days of advancing tween-dom. It lasts while I wash the dishes, gazing out the back window, watching birds and squirrels and the two timid hummingbirds, the one with the pale red neck and white chest who comes only after the one with the iridescent back and wings gets its fill. It lasts while I watch my father, mouth open like a bird, his heart and lungs and kidneys working so very hard to do their final push, slip in and out of this world, not yet ready to leave, but not really capable of staying.
I love reading your blog!