happiness and life

Last night I went with friends to a restaurant in another town not too far from home, very reasonably priced, with great food. I have been there before, and have never been disappointed. From there we went to a bar in another town, for a "digestive" and a coffee with other friends. Home, not too late, with jazz music playing as we sped through the dark on tiny country roads. Well... travelled with care with some relative speed, watching the temperature (it was 1 degree) and being aware that there could be ice. We talked about philosophy, about life, about how we each came to be living so far from where we once called home. It was an unexpected invitation, so the pleasure was perhaps even greater.

Today I reflect on it, and think how different my life is here. This blog was going to be about restaurants, and how good it would be if we could share these lovely "hard to find" spots with travellers, but how sad it would be if the places then changed. But I think the blog is about life.

Life certainly has its ups and downs, but when I hit speed bumps I am more likely to take time to think about them, and monitor how and why I react in certain ways. Tonight I read a little Chopra, and was drawn to the notion that we all have happiness inside us, it is a natural state, not something we should be looking for elsewhere. So often our happiness is hidden, just as the clouds hide the sun. Happiness from within is a natural state which cannot be taken from us. Happiness dependent on external things can be taken away.

Yesterday another friend had given me something unexpected to think about, and I was feeling a bit down. I went out for a while, doing errands, and as I drove along the valley I caught sight of my village on the hillside. Once again I experienced that physical sensation of happiness that I get every time I come home to Italy. Happiness, under the philosophy above, probably can't be a place. But once more I remember the poem by Fleur Adcock, and I read it again with fresh eyes.

Weathering
My face catches the wind
from the snow line
and flushes with a flush
that will never wholly settle.
Well, that was a metropolitan vanity,
wanting to look young forever, to pass.
I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty
and only pretty enough to be seen
with a man who wanted to be seen
with a passable woman.

But now that I am in love
with a place that doesn't care
how I look and if I am happy,
happy is how I look and that's all.
My hair will grow grey in any case,
my nails chip and flake,
my waist thicken, and the years
work all their usual changes.

If my face is to be weather beaten as well,
it's little enough lost
for a year among the lakes and vales
where simply to look out my window
at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors
and to what my soul may wear
over its new complexion.

~ Fleur Adcock ~