The Happy Place

Okay, so my posts have been a little deep lately. So I'll just warn you that this one will be too. I promise I will try to write more about sunny things like cupcakes and antique store finds, but right now, I'm in a deep place and my posts are coming from that place. I hope you'll read along with me and in the process maybe feel a tap at your heart - like this applies to you too. A few weeks ago, when my friend Nick was out, we were sitting outside at dusk, eating dinner and I looked at him and said "this is going to be one of my happy places." I then told him that I (like all of us, I'm sure) have these captive memories of moments in my life that are my happy places. I can go there in my mind and be there, relive the moment, enjoy the happiness. Most of them aren't big earth shattering milestones like birthdays or graduations. They are simple moments where life is just really good. And the other thing about happy places - you normally don't have a picture to go with them. Like you are there, enjoying it, and even if there was a picture taken, it wouldn't really accurately encompass what the moment truly was about.

Nick and I spent a while sharing out happy places - for him, it was an evening on his parent's porch, right after he came home from being away in New York at college. There were candles lit, great music playing, and all of the people he loved were there. A happy place.

Tonight, Tim and I went to Laguna Beach for dinner. We ate at the most amazing restaurant, and as we ate, I brought up the happy place thing. I told him that this - our dinner tonight - was a happy place. And so many other moments with him - our times in Solvang, especially at our favorite wine bar, the smell of the aged wine in casks heavy in the air. I can close my eyes and be there. A cloudy morning in Mystic, CT, the day of Tim's Aunt's wedding, shopping for a trinket to give Tim's mom and having clam strips in a little New England fish house. And a fall night with my friend Jonathan, at his friend Yvette's in Laguna Beach. Sitting there in a courtyard on a black iron work patio set, just the two of us. With the splashing water of the water fountains and the smell of hundreds of white roses. French music spilling out into the night and a real conversation. No words spared. Such a beautiful moment of friendship. It was nice to sit with Tim and talk about my happy places and to learn about his. Some of which I'd never even heard about. I got to live them with him as he talked about them. As we talked, the waiter came by and said "Wow, I haven't wanted to interrupt you guys"..."You seem so in love." What came to me is that we are nothing more than a sum of moments, and that passionate moments are what we are here to have. The waiter even saw the passion spilling from both of us as we shared our favorite moments of life.

Next time you are with someone you love, ask them to tell you about their happy place. And think about yours. Close your eyes and go there for a minute. I hope it fills your heart as it did mine tonight.