A Conversation, Expanded

I just want to get back to that place where I was happy again, she says. But what is happiness?

I’ve begun to think happiness isn’t a place we get back to.

I think it is a cloud.

We encounter clouds throughout our lives, but they are always in a different form when we see them.

Sometimes, we don’t recognize them until they are gone.

Other times we’re literally engulfed in clouds.

And often, we only just glimpse them or touch them and they are on their way.

But clouds are constant. They return, over and over.

And I think happiness has more to do with what we are looking for and where we are looking for it, like clouds.

Clouds are up in the sky, outside of our selves, our normal beaten path.

Nature is cyclical.

Our lives are cyclical.

Water collects in a large body, evaporates into the air, condenses into clouds, falls as rain, collects again.

We walk through phases of happiness, contentment; phases of staleness, discontent; phases of struggle, confusion. And we return again and again to happiness.

There are no shortcuts.

We cannot force happiness.

But we humans, we are backwards-gifted with hindsight.

We remember.

All the pain, fear, anger, hurt. But also the happiness, smiles and laughter, peace, joy.

We learn. The imprint of those phases settles like dust into the corners of our memories.

And as we cycle forward into a new phase, the dust is stirred up.

Our inner voice – the hushed voice we often choose to not hear – says, “I have felt this place before.”

I think happiness is a cloud.

It never wears the same shape twice.

It arrives when we are not looking for it, and cannot be found on the days that we search.

But clouds are constant.

I think it is the person whose heart-voice guides them

who sees clouds -

happiness -

truly.