The Sweet Light of Happiness
A cold, steady rain washed down the windows, turning the outside world into a smear of gray. It would have been a fine day for hunkering on the couch with an afghan, a movie, and a hot cup of tea. But weekends are the only time I have to tackle tasks that take unbroken hours of concentration, so the tea and I plunked down at my desk instead.
As it turned out, it was a Murphy’s Law kind of day. The unfamiliar software I was struggling to learn had the hiccups. Both my pen and my printer ran out of ink. And just as I started to make headway and get into the flow, my neighbor dropped in to chat.
It was late afternoon before I realized I still needed to pick up a few groceries, and that I hadn’t yet captured my photo-of-the-day for my photo project. What on earth could I shoot in this dim light, with all the rain pelting down! I grabbed my grocery list and camera and set out to see what I would find.
One thing my nine months of taking daily nature photos has taught me is that beauty isn’t dependent on weather or season or time of day. Like happiness, it’s always there, just waiting to be recognized. You simply have to clear the lens of your own perception to see it. And you do that by letting go of your wanting things to be different than they are. That’s the key.
As I tucked my wet grocery bags into my car, and turned on the windshield wipers to clear away the rain, a glimmer of white caught my eye from the parking lot of the hardware store on that far edge of the shopping center. They had put their nursery stock out, and it included some kind of tree that seemed from the distance to be in blossom. I drove over.
It turned out that every one of the blossoms on the young trees was damaged, the edges of the flowers wilted and brown. They must have been caught in the freezing cold the last couple days brought us. But as I turned to leave, I saw a few pallets of flowers standing in front of the store’s doors. Their bright colors called me, and although they were windblown, and many of the blooms were closed in their own version of holing up against the rain, some tiny white ones gave off a sweet light, and some of the pansies were gaily dancing. I snapped a dozen shots and then noticed that I was broadly grinning.
As I drove home, the wet gray sky seemed pearly and luminous. I noticed the subtle shades of spring green that began to paint the fields, and the faint glow of pink in the woods as the maple’s buds swelled with new growth. How alive the world was! How vibrant!
I think it was Emerson who once observed that the quality of light is always perfect, regardless of the time of day. When you allow yourself to see things as they truly are, their beauty always shines through. The sweet light of happiness shines every moment, unceasingly beaming its tender, relentless joy. And it’s all ours for the taking, would we but let go of our wanting things to be other than they are.
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