Open Happiness

Even as a small child, I wandered the woods. Searching throughout the seasons for my place in the world and expecting to find it written amidst the dogwood leaves. Scuffing dead branches and twigs on the trail and creating paths where none ventured, I sought refuge among the peace of the trees. Changing weather was a constant friend. If it stormed, I would be among the first to run outside to feel the wind whipping through my hair and stomp in fresh puddles until the splatter and rain commingled and drenched my body. When the leaves fell, my sister and I would rake them into big piles and then jump with abandon scattering our day’s work as fall’s pungent aroma permeated our skin. Winter’s first snow found us sledding down a neighbor’s hill, carving ice angels and building snow men with carrot noses and stick arms.

It was a simple time. My only concern was timing the hot chocolate so I could place a steaming mug in the mailbox to provide warmth to the mailman. In the heat of summer, I had to be in proximity of the front yard so when I heard the musical tones signaling the ice cream truck, I would run, pony tails flying and dimes in hand, to trade my allowance for an ice cream sandwich.

I thought of these images when I read the words Open Happiness next to the coca-cola bottle printed on the cocktail napkin. How nice to have a can of coke to take a sip and recapture youth. Or pour its dark color in a glass and find my past in clear bubbles. Its liquid refreshment quenching the thirst of those who yearn for the adult versions of happiness – the intangibles such as joy, peace and contentment.

I retreat to the woods to find happiness and experience the changing seasons but sometimes can’t feel the breeze’s soft embrace because I am running away from people encroaching in my space instead of running to a beautiful place. I let them into my life so I run to let them go. The soft ice angels of my childhood have morphed into hard cold ice that drips through the veins and in the reptilian eyes of those who disbelieve that mailbox warmth and ice cream trucks belong in the present as much as the past.

I seem to go more often to the woods to escape these toxic people consuming me with their manipulations. But, I still take change for a simple treat in the summer. I put my boots on tight in the winter and marvel at the first snow falling on the lake and bright red cardinal perched majestically on a pure white frosty branch. I raise my face to the heavens when it rains and feel the wetness sting my cheeks and run down my hair. I reach out my hand to catch the first falling leaf of autumn. I am free to experience the wonders of the wild and let my heart travel with childlike wonder in the ancient directions intended before my time.

Maybe the coke people have it right. Happiness is simple. Open it up. It doesn’t really matter if the woods are my retreat or my journey. It doesn’t matter why I go, who I leave behind or what I take. It just matters that the same legs that took me to the ice cream truck are still forging a path. It simply matters that I go and open my heart when I arrive.