Happiness Is

Juggling an apple.

Apparently.

According to my favourite port of call when I am A: physically sick, B: mentally exhausted and C: quite a bit of je ne sais pas. That would be Cabin Pressure. Listen below for the quirky life advice of Arthur Shappey.

There are a million things you might apply to happiness. A trillion. Basically, happiness is like the universe, expanding and expanding and expanding. So much so that we honestly cannot comprehend even into what it is expanding to.

I feel like I am complaining a lot lately, or at the very least, around people I find myself wanting to say negative things. I might have mentioned the national sport of England is not football, but "whinging" (their word for complaining).

Plus I am a natural perfectionist, at least in my head, even though you could say I have areas of total messiness and imperfection I am the least perfect person possible. (At least in terms of attempts to be such). Nonetheless, I do strive to give off the best impression, be likeable, be passionate, be engaging. That's *very* hard to keep up on a daily basis when you are also an introvert who would much rather be at the back creating things, instead of at the front telling people how to do something, or directing them toward some form of comprehension.

I recently went back down to London, for the day. I was literally up at 5am and back home and in bed by after midnight. In one day I went from a small town with small people and small minds to one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world and back again, in the space of 18 hours.

Sometimes I cannot comprehend what possessed me to go down the path I am on. I dream of being a freelance writer. I dream of being an author. I dream of wandering the paths of Greenwood and exploring halls of Imladris. I want to be whom and where I am not.

Sound familiar? I bet.

Part of my reasons for being over here in England was just because I was hating being at home. I was stifled. I felt stagnant. I felt like I was going the back end of nowhere.

And then today I heard of a girl who asks things like "which twin's birthday is it today?" and who takes great joy in spending hours on painting toenails and the like Simple. Mindless. To her, that is pure happiness.

To me, I cannot comprehend how anyone could find joy in something like that. I'll do it. But I would nnever spend hours on that sort of thing. Then again, I read for hours on end and someone else might say I am wasting time reading mindless entertainment, seeing as most of library is fantasy, sci-fi or mystery. Genre fiction.

It's a simple activity to me. Simple. Mindless.

I can get lost in it.

Take those moments when you wake up late, rush out the door, breakfast in hand or dangling from your lips, saliva starting to melt it into mush. When you reach your destination on time. What do you feel?

I'd describe it as the best caffeinated, caffeine substitute this side of the universe.

That is happiness.

It is no grand, unobtanium from some distant planet. It might even be the slice of peanut butter toast being crammed in your mouth.

Except that you probably will forget you crammed it in your mouth an hour later when you are trapped in the rat race of work and you will feel distinctly unhappy.

So, how do you feel happy?

By remembering. Make a story of your day. Make it dramatic. Put it to the soundtrack of some epic music or belt it out like you are the star of a musical.

I am challenging you to keep a notebook listing everything that you did every day that should bring happiness, did bring happiness or could bring happiness. The next time you parttake in that speedy breakfast of peanut butter toast, enjoy the feeling of it sticking to the roof of your mouth as you barrel-ride your way to work.

Happiness is the courage to see your perspective from the rear view mirror.

Remember the Bucket? Fill it up with moments of happiness.

And epic music...like this: The best way to be fantastic in life is to have the courage to build a mountain of little moments of happiness. Stand on that. Then make more and stand in the valley, surrounded by those mountains.

Happiness. Is. Everything.
Moony.

The Archeology of Luggage

Pretty images. Whimsy and idle. I spy it as the train whips past red brick villages, and fog rolling fields sometimes speckled with horses. Trees line the tracks, leaning, thin and leafy in the manner I know of from Victoria. Even the stations are small; speckled in old benches and overhangs, all brick and stone and wood. The most garish colours come from the train's bright fluorescent lights and plasticky or metal innards and skin. Oh and the mouldy industry buildings sinking rot into the outskirts. Otherwise it is quiet. The hills seem to go on forever.

These iconic buses are regular public transport. Not just tourist buses as I always assumed.

It seems perfect now, but just some hours earlier, after arriving at the station two hours in advance out of fear of getting lost or hung up somewhere, especially with what I carry, an announcement airs, explaining a cancelled train. A tree has fallen over the line and other ways of travel will need to be sorted. I get up around then as it is 20 minutes to for when my own train leaves and I don't see mine up yet, though there is one leaving for Cambridge right then, so I figure I could see if I could catch that one. Oh. Wait. Delayed it suddenly reads. Then, seconds later. Cancelled. Also.

I start worrying as I am catching a train to Cambridge. Yep. All trains to Cambridge are cancelled thanks to a tree falling over the line. But, I can still catch a train out of Kings Cross, according to an information person and along the way back to the Tube I find a group also hurrying to Kings Cross due to the same reasons. They agree to stick with me, except when I get hung up at stairs. My nemesis, mostly due to all the luggage and that pesky thing called weight. I get help, once. But mostly people help once, feel the weight, and then go running. People don't like weighty or difficult things. I can agree. They do add unnecessary stress.

So anyway, somehow I manage my way over, with little help. Twice to be exact, in the end. Those people who proclaimed to stick with me, ditched me at one point, finally, and I find myself running, again, to catch a train to Cambridge, leaving Kings Cross nearly the same time as my original was meant too. No idea how the rest of the journey will fare, especially as out here, among fog and cobbled streets and stairs up and down, will I manage? Well, I do have past experience backing me. I have managed thus far. I will continue to do so. However, it does make me dearly want to have a home base where I can drop things and travel out of. Getting UK citizenship is high on my mind. I wonder if I got a job with the agency, could use them to work toward a citizenship? I would like that. This corner of the world is so much closer to my heart and my center of travel and exploration. All I need now is a base and I can drop the excess and depart. Then again, all these musings could just me be feeling tired, hot and wondering why I couldn't be the sort of person who can travel the world on a backpack?

Especially as there is much to be said about even having excess weight in the first place. Particularly of just shoving it into corners. Well, once I get settled I should take stock of what is most important to me. Clothes? Glasses? Extra bottles of shampoo which will get me by for a month or two? Notebooks with my writing in it? Games? Tablet? PS3? Perhaps. One might say I am totally going overboard with what I brought (particularly on the electronics front) and that a more sensible person would simply purchase everything over here. But then, I already have the things, why buy more? I mean, I will have to purchase many things, a phone, for example, since I thought it might be easier and cheaper than getting my own unlocked and a new SIM card for it. Not so. Not at all. In order to get a phone here, you need one, a bank account (namely, a bank card) and two, a permanent residence that matches your bank information. It's things like that you never bat an eye toward when living in your home country.

Now, well, I am cherishing the bits I have from home. It makes me smile a little every morning to use hygiene products that have labels in French and English and to slip on a one of the many warm sweaters from home, in hopes there might still be a bit of cat fur on them.

If you were moving to a new country for two years, and very potentially moving about even that country itself, what would you bring with you?

Bringing bits everywhere.
Moony