When happiness comes---

It's Christmas break and this morning I was arguing with myself about getting out of bed to get my run in.  It had rained overnight and was still looking pretty gray and wet outside.  I went back and forth for a while--I had to be in Little Rock at 10 for a haircut--but I finally got out there.

The rain was gone but not the fog and mist.  It was pretty warm, especially for a wet December morning, and it felt great to be out there once I got moving!  My iphone (replaced since then!) had been acting up, so I was running to my favorite Pandora station.

For a long time I've been trying to remind/teach myself that happiness is not a constant, but something that comes in fits and starts that you have to grab and hold onto.  I think it's like butter--you get a blob of it at once but you have to spread it out.  You can't expect life to be one long stream of melted butter, and you can't just sit by the butter dish scooping it off.  I was running down into Stonewall when Ani DiFranco started singing "As Is."  There's something about that song (the live version on pandora, but a few minutes ago I found an itunes special version that is just as good--the cd version is not), about the way she's working that guitar, about her voice and the lyrics and the depth--that has tugged at me for a while now.  And misty runs--those tug at me, too.  When I'm running and it's foggy and  now and then a microdrop of water will pool on my eye for a fraction of a second...So I was a mile and a half into a perfect morning run and then this song came on and it opened up a brief but huge chasm of happiness.  In my chest, maybe?  I remembered to open myself to  it and I smiled big and just ran on into it.

Later on in the run I was thinking about the first marathon, about the picture Julann posted and titled "Elation," about that feeling, and I was thinking that I would not trade that feeling, about how deep that feeling went, about how thankful I am that I get to do something that moves me to tears (the happy kind, not the oh my god why are these kids acting like this kind, because I get to do that, too.)  I hope to feel that again.  I know it will be different, but I hope it will be deep in a different way, like all chasms of happiness are.

Maybe happiness is sometimes like a stream, smooth and gentle, running over you.  Maybe that's how it was today having lunch at Kristin's.  I realized how much I miss down time with her.  But sometimes it is deep and unexpected and seemingly unrelated to anything and you have to plunge into it without asking questions.

I'm glad running takes me outside--otherwise I wouldn't have seen this morning the wet brown branches cool against the gray sky, wouldn't have felt damp and happy with that delicious used feeling in my legs.  I'll take it, as is, as Ani is singing right now.