The adoption fair for FFO this week has been shifted to Sunday and, after some consideration, I've decided that even though by technicality Sunday should present no more problem than Saturday, I would really hate having it (permanently) on Sundays.
Why? Because Sunday morning is the only day of the week where I feel comfortable sleeping in a little. Because Sunday morning is the time(my time) between finishing everything that's due on Monday and trying to get a head start on studying and prepping things for the next week. Because, in a sense, Sunday morning was peace.
Have you ever had a morning where you woke up completely relaxed, with your mind gloriously warm and blank while you stared at the light playing through the curtains? It is those few moments before your memory and your conscious (and your guilt and whatever else) kicked in -- those few blissful moments. I get them on Sunday mornings and, unless drugged, no other time. One summer when I was in high school I'd taught myself how to remember my dreams (enough to record them in detail the next morning) and to wake up instantaneously -- and had spent three consecutive months afterwards trying to forget how. Immediate wake up, I've learned, has it advantages, but it usually means that you can't go back to sleep afterwards, either. (Your day begins with your first moment of consciousness because you'd unthinkingly replaced the dial switch with the on / off switch.)
So Sunday morning is my moment of peace, and as much as I want to do my best for my foster kitties, I really would resent their intrusions into my Sunday mornings.
And no, my personal definition of peace is not just that moment in time. (Heavens forbid me from being so sensory deprived.)(Joking. Sort of.) Peace is more than any sort of a physical, sensual thing -- even the personal kind. But peace, like many other feelings, is something that can be triggered by physical, sensual things. It can be stored in things around us the way memories can, and so I say that peace is also the sound of rain on pavement and the smell of jasmine, tea or otherwise. World peace and political peace definitions aside, peace is also a sort of calmness, which I like to link to the image of the ripples on a quiet pond.
Peace, I think, should be a sort of pale, sage-green -- something cool and comforting that you can wrap around yourself at the end of the day.
I wish I could say that I have as good of an idea for happiness as I do for peace, given the two are, more often than not, inclusive. I do have some ideas of what it might be (and it would be more than the fireworks of laughter and ice cream -- so bright, but never lasting). What comes to mind when I try to pin it down in wiggling, tricky words is a series of snapshots (because I can't help thinking in pictures): sunshine on grass, home with the cream-colored futon and calla lilies, Borders the day after Thanksgiving. What I have are the lit lamp by the door when I come home late after a meeting, a cat purring by my feet where I sat in the dark (and so many other photographs that I try unsuccessfully to juggle together, like a puzzle with pieces still missing). It doesn't quite fit yet but one day, when it does, I'll let you know.
I do know that I think happiness should be the color of amber -- the warm honeyed hue with just a hint of gold.
And now I think I'll go and scrub out the bathroom. Excuse me.
No comments:
Post a Comment