High on Happiness

The Happiness of a Rainy Day

April 7th, 2010 | Author: Susan K Minarik

Comfort The day was a soft one, its light diffuse, its temperature mild. Great blankets of clouds hovered just above the treetops at the parking lot’s edge. They stretched from horizon to horizon and muted the world’s colors and sounds. And then a gentle rain began to fall.

It was the kind of day some would call dreary. It made you want to nestle somewhere, to curl in the curve of a couch with a good movie or book, or to find a quiet restaurant where you could sit with an old friend sipping tea over short observations and long silences. It made you want to squeeze from it the comfort of the familiar. For me, it took on the quality of a poem.

I cracked my office window to let in the rain’s fragrance and watched its thick droplets cling to the glass, each little globe holding a miniature upside-down reflection of the scene outside. The murmurs of conversations floating down the hall blended with the ambient sounds: the humming of the computers, the gentle thudding of doors closing, footfalls on the carpet.

People seemed to move a little more softly and slower, the familiarity of our routines wrapping around each of us with feathery comfort. In the break room, women chatted about their families and about the dinners they would cook when they got home.

There’s a special happiness that can come when days are soft, a gentle happiness associated with nurturing and human communion. It comes with a tinge of nostalgia and wears an aura of safety and peace. It slows us down a little and focuses our awareness on the small things.

It’s the kind of happiness that gives rise to homey memories and glows with a sense of belonging and ease. It’s the happiness of continuity, of the familiar.

And when you recognize it and sink into its softness, even on the days that some would call dreary, it gets you high.