Happiness is the Sum of Small Moments (or: go outside!)
Without fail, a moment in nature is time well spent. Every single time. Even I have to remind myself of that sometimes. I am right on the beach and practically live outside. My little cottage has open on one side (aka no windows) so it’s a bit like glamping. It’s not that you ever get used to have a beautiful ocean outside the door. It’s just that you know it’s still going to be there later (I thought the same about Scotland when I lived in England and ended up never going there. Regrets).
I had worked all morning through to 3pm and was running out of steam. I felt that familiar crankiness that overcomes me when I haven’t been in the water for a few days. As I followed my excited dog down the few steps to the beach I noticed dark clouds looming all around us. Somewhere in the distance, the sun lit up the coconut trees glistening from the recent rain like a giant spotlight. Two minutes max I thought. And then it happened all at once: an epic tropical downpour that hurt the skin, wind whipping up waves, light breaking through a gap in the clouds turning rain drops into a million sparkling diamonds. My neighbours little yellow boat is bobbing on the choppy water as a friend paddles past me on his surfboard and we both simultaneously shout: “I wish I had brought my camera!!” It was stunning. Ten minutes that blew away any tiredness and melancholy for the rest of the day. And so the lesson is: go outside as much as you can. Take a few moments to disconnect and cherish what you have. I miss Australia but at the same time I never take the beauty and peacefulness around me for granted and try to soak it all up. Just in case I might miss it one day, too.
If you live in the city, then maybe you can find those little pockets of nature: take a book to the park and read, walk along the river, watch the birds in the tree outside your house… and travel to the countryside as much as you are able to. Even if you consider yourself to be a city person. Talk to dogs and horses, hold a chicken, pick flowers, take your shoes off and walk through wet grass, get dirt on your hands and see how you feel at the end of the day.
My book that is in the works will have an additional chapter thanks to the detour that has brought me here to this island and it will be all about making the most of living in a place even if you don’t feel you belong and you don’t have the option to leave. Because we can find beauty and magical moments wherever we are.
Bondi at the beach © Hadassa Haack
“In a meadow full of flowers you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to support the beauty, the poetry of life.”
