happiness Archives : The Aging of Aquarius

This Is Happiness

Email regret, Faha rain, and my friendships with Ed and Niall.

I got an email from Ed Pyle this morning. It arrived with perfect timing and placement, in the middle of my stack of electronic junk mail just as I was settling in with my sunrise coffee. Ed’s note rescued me from the spam before my mind got busy with to-do lists, before the day got cluttered.

Ed rarely sends me emails and his subject heading was everything a good headline should be, curious and intriguing: “Email and THE book”, it read. Otherwise, the message content was just a link with no greeting, no explanation, and no signature.

Wary 21st-century cyber sleuth that I am I was suspicious that it might be a phishing lure and not a note from my friend. Knowing better than to click on unexpected links I followed the clue visible in the URL to a thoughtful New York Times article by best-selling author Ann Patchett.

Here it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/opinion/ann-patchett-regret-email.html

Sadly the Times has a paywall so I’ll give you a summary in case you don’t have or want a subscription.

Patchett was asked to admit a single regret and she thought long and hard before deciding her greatest regret in the past 30 years is email. Her explanation cited my favorite book This Is Happiness by Irish novelist Niall Williams.

“As though an infinite store had been discovered, more and more stars kept appearing,” Noe says about the nights in Faha. “The sky grew immense. Although you couldn’t see it, you could smell the sea.”

That’s the way it was in Provincetown, the way it was in Ireland, and I’m sure that’s the way it is now, except that if I were now in Provincetown or Ireland on a clear night, I’d probably be at my computer checking my email. I love email, and I hate email.

Our modern toys and magical conveniences have ensnared us. That’s Patchett’s point and the understated subplot of This Is Happiness. Ed Pyle sent me a pristine hardbound first edition when it came out a few years ago and we are both still enchanted by it.

…unashamed romance for a nostalgic tradition of storytelling, where exaggeration and eye twinkles might in fact just bring you closer to the truth. Sublime.’
—Hilary White, IRISH INDEPENDENT

Ed was my boss before he became my friend. It wasn’t until a few years after we parted daily company in a radio station newsroom that we began swapping notes on Facebook. They led to mutual affection for our shared sense of humor and search for insight.

This Is Happiness satisfied my hunger but it also made me crave more of Williams’ unhurried talent for meandering through a story without jolts and flashes of overwrought drama. His stories don’t grab you, they seep in like a soft nourishing Irish rain. I quickly read everything Niall Williams has ever written and fell in love with the writer and maybe the man himself.

Then I took an online fiction writing class from Niall, a weekly meeting inside his Kiltumper home via real-time face-to-face encounters with the author and some ten or twelve other students. He taught us to write by writing. We read our work to the class and Niall shared with us his wisdom.

That was happiness.

The brevity of Ed’s email and the terms of Patchett’s regret made me realize I need to spend more time reaching out to friends in person when possible or by phone and less often by computer. I am vowing to use text messaging only for “Yes,” “No,” and “Can I call you?” And while I love nothing more than sitting at my keyboard, spilling my thoughts as I feed my mind, I will save time every day for engaging the world outside. I will continue to talk with my prized hibiscus. Dog walkers will get a wave and a greeting from me. Conversations will be ignited and strangers will become rewarding acquaintances.

Some may even become cherished friends like Ed, Niall, and me.

The frightful power of memories

by Dave Williams
November 12, 2022

Today would have been my mother’s 91st birthday. She died three years ago. I wish I could talk with her today because I have an epiphany to share:

Nostalgia is sweet but stifling. It clutches, refusing to let you go.

She would have been happy for me because the idea makes me happy, but I doubt she would have agreed.

My mother was the dearest, kindest, most giving person I’ve ever known. She was also very smart. She lit every room she entered in a sweet way, laughing and gracious, never commanding. I loved her for all of that.

Mom taught me many important lessons but the one I always remember best is something she told me when I was a very young child:

“This can be a good day or a bad day. It’s up to you.”

She wouldn’t remember that but I think of those words nearly every single morning. They empowered me to be happy. Sadly, it was advice she couldn’t always embrace for herself.

Mom had four children and she doted on us to the point of annoyance.

“All I want is to have all of my kids together with me again.”

That’s what she always said when I’d visit as an adult. As she grew older her sharp humor and wonderful outlook never faded, yet her nostalgic despair grew deeper. It was a deep sadness she masked with her dazzling smile and a small, pretty laugh.

“I just wish we were all still living in Loomis together Those were such wonderful times.”

As I remember it, we loved that home and each other but it was far from wonderful. My dad was overseas much of the time and when he was home he and Mom were both unhappy. They had argued a lot for years; Loomis was the beginning of the end of their marriage but Mom lovingly created and preserved her memories in a photo album of the heart, as we all do. She chose to hold onto the good and forget the bad, bless her. I learned that from her, as well, and I’m grateful for it. The problem was, she embellished her happy memories and lived in them.

Over the past few days, I’ve stumbled across some old family pictures that warm my heart but they also seem distant and foreign. I feel like I’m looking at an old home movie, snips of this and that mixed in a confusion of time. It all seems like several lifetimes ago. My emotions respond but my sense of reality can’t quite connect.

What I see in the past now is how far I’ve come, how much I’ve learned, and how more deeply I love the people and places of my life that made me who I am.

I hold onto the good times and feelings. They excite me about today and tomorrow.

Nostalgia is a nice place to visit but you can’t live there, you can only die there or keep it stashed in your heart and move on.

Making life small

I took this picture near our home in Texas. It’s a big place with small beauties.

I’m starting a week of vacation tomorrow. I like my job but it forces me to focus on the world’s problems and there’s never a shortage of them.

Today I’m checking out from the big world of bad news. Putin, the pandemic, politics and the price of gas will swirl on without me for a few days. I’m on time-out.

I just came in from the patio where I drank coffee and watched the dogs rush back and forth chasing birds thirty feet above them.

It’s a beautiful day. Spring isn’t far off.

We sprang forward last night. I don’t like time changes but I’m not going to fuss about it right now.

Photo by my uncle, Michael Webster. He sees things the rest of us look past.

CarolAnn is having a fun day out with one of her girlfriends. (“Girlfriends” sounds kinda silly at their age, but I’ll never admit I said that.)

I’m sipping coffee, listening to classic country, thinking happily of my kids and theirs.

Cora, the cat, just plopped down beside me and begged for a chin scratch.

The world is a mess, but at this level it’s still filled with miracles and joy.

Sometimes I just need life to be small.

Our 50th Anti-Versary

by Dave Williams

August 21, 2021

50 years ago today I got married. We were both barely 20.

Five years later we had a son. Five years after that we got divorced.

Today is our 50th anti-versary. That’s the term I invented a few years after we split up when the emotional angst was mostly behind me and I realized something I still think was pretty insightful:

Our marriage didn’t fail, it just ended.

Now, 50 years later I’m proud to say that my high school sweetheart is still my close friend. So is her husband, and they share a happy friendship with my wife of 33 years.

We’ve all shared the best of life over the past several decades: kids, grandkids, a wonderful daughter-in-law and her loving family, holiday gatherings and a lot of happy memories made of special events and activities.

Jeremy & Emily’s wedding, 1997. The kids pledged their eternal love as John and I sealed our family ties.
L-R: Emily’s parents, Gloria and George, Karen, Emily, Jeremy, John, CarolAnn, me.

My wives, former and current, have spent days together shopping and taking the grandsons to Disneyland. This past June my ex and her hubby joined us for a weekend road trip celebrating CarolAnn’s and my anniversary.

Some people think this is highly unusual if not downright weird. But I ask you, how do you throw away 50 years of love and respect out of spite? Why would you do that?

The four of us are separately happy together.

Karen and I learned to keep the good times and dump the bad.

So, happy anti-versary, Karen. Give John a hug for CarolAnn and me.

And thanks, for everything.

Big round numbers

June 13, 2019

A couple of days ago marked the 50th anniversary of my graduation from Highlands High School outside of Sacramento. A few days later I began my radio career.

50 years. It’s a stunning number. And that was quite a week, as I recall.

June 10, 1969 was a Tuesday. School was out and for some three or four hundred of us assembled in the football stadium the entire world of opportunities was laid at our feet.

I gave one of the two student commencement speeches that day. I waxed eloquently and metaphorically about those opportunities and warned my classmates, “You must be quick to grab the world by the tail (dramatic pause)…or be left holding the shattered fragments of a Crystal Dream.”

Our parents and teachers applauded my youthful wisdom. My classmates drank from hidden flasks, fired off a couple of illegal bottle rockets and laughed like hell.

One guy in the front row flashed me his junk under his graduation robe.

I said goodbye to my childhood that day with a handful of close friends who are still close and the girl who would become my wife.

Then 50 years slipped away.

In our fascination with big, round numbers we look back on our lives and try to find meaning in the journey. We measure ourselves, comparing then and now.

I’ve been anticipating this big round number for quite awhile and now that it has arrived I’m surprised to learn that it’s not that big a deal except for two things:

I’m alive and happy.

Next stop, the big, round 7-0.

Pleasantries in the men’s room

I had a nice, short conversation with a man named Jaime this morning. He’s one of those people you see at work nearly every day, but if you work in a building with a lot of large companies as we do you tend to just nod and smile as you pass in the hall. You rarely say anything more than just, “Good morning.”

Jaime and I nod and smile in the men’s room pretty much every day because that’s his office. He’s the janitor and doesn’t mind being called that. I know because I asked him.

I guess Jaime’s work schedule pretty much stays the same every day because my schedule stays the same. We usually meet during the 7 a.m. network news.

After nodding and smiling and saying “Good morning” to Jaime every morning I finally asked him his name a couple of weeks ago. He told me, I gave him mine and then we both smiled and went on about our business. He was cleaning toilets and I was about to use the urinal. Guys don’t shake hands in men’s rooms.

This morning I saw Jaime again and the fact that we had swapped names made me feel like I could talk with him for a moment, so I did.

“Jaime, how are you?” I began.

“Good. How are you doing?” he replied.

I told Jaime I was fine, thank you, and then I told him I’ve noticed him because he’s always smiling and seems happy. He told me he is happy and he seemed amused by the fact that we were talking. After all, I was his “customer” in a manner of speaking.

“I’ve seen a lot of guys cleaning restrooms,” I said, “but you’re the only one who always seems to be smiling,” I explained.

This is probably TMI as we say these days, but this part of our conversation actually happened while I was facing the wall tending to business. Jaime was wiping down the counter and sinks. My point being we weren’t actually making eye contact just yet.

When I was able to address him face-to-face I said something like, “I just wanted you to know I see you every morning and you seem happy.”

“Yes,” he said, surprised but pleased. “I’m a happy person.”

I said, “It shows and that’s unusual. I like that.”

As a native Californian instigating conversation with a stranger is nearly unthinkable but I’ve been in Texas for seven years now and it’s fun.

Jaime beamed and thanked me. Then he felt bold enough to brag a little.

“I’m just happy,” he told me. “I have a nice family and friends and I have a job. Why not be happy?”

He seemed very proud of his job and his happy life. I think he was also glad that I had talked with him.

Jaime made my day and I think I made his.

PS. Three weeks after I wrote this it has suddenly occurred to me that the phrase, “Pleasantries in the men’s room” could be seriously misinterpreted and is no proper title for anything proper. I could change it but I see no point, really. If the headline offended you — or was misleading in a disappointing way, I apologize. — DW 5-8-19

Are you happy?

I’ve been thinking about happiness lately. I believe we all need to check in with ourselves every so often and ask how we’re doing.

Are you happy?

The answer tends to move around a bit. We respond with shifting qualifications:

“Yes, I’m mostly happy but…”

Most people aren’t being fair with themselves. Happiness, like life itself, ebbs and flows. This moment has nothing to do with yesterday or last year when you were promoted. Right now is completely detached from your divorce or that time you were fired from a job.

Dump your baggage. Nobody is forcing you to carry it.

We’ve heard it so many times we shrug it off as philosophical fluff but I’m here to tell you, it’s true:

You really are as happy as you decide to be.

My mother impressed this on me when I was a young child. I can hear her now as plainly and lovingly as when she said it sixty years ago:

“This can be a good day or a bad day,” she said. “It’s up to you.”

Mom inoculated me from life’s disappointments and tragedies. Oddly, it took 50+ years before it became a conscious realization that I could make my daily affirmation.

I’m not always happy, nobody is. That’s the beauty of it, the ebb and flow of our lives. You can’t fully experience joy or misery without knowing the other.

“You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes”.”
Lauren Oliver, Delirium

So many people these days seem to crave sympathy for life’s ordinary challenges like having to do things they don’t want to do or simply waking up in the morning.

I wake up groggy and tired like everyone else but I’m thankful for waking up. I force myself to embrace each new day.

Decide to be happy.

I know that’s sappy (rhyme not intended but unavoidable) but the mere fact that you find so much in ordinary everyday life to whine about is a self-imposed disregard for one immutable fact:

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wanted very much for this post to be inspirational, not preachy. I may have failed in that. But since we’re nearing the end, let me add one more idea about happiness that you can consider for yourself in your own good time:

Is griping useful? No. Is happiness infectious? Absolutely.

For your own sake and for those of us who have to deal with you and want to like you, choose happiness.

Dennis Prager often says we have a responsibility to others to be happy. I agree. To put it more bluntly:

Nobody wants to hear you whine. We all have problems. Smile and stop being a pain in the ass.

This can be a good day or a bad day, it’s up to you.
Nancy Williams

The Happiest Place on Earth

She must have been about ten, maybe a little younger. Holding her daddy’s hand she walked solemnly down Main Street next to me, surrounded by hundreds of other people, all headed toward the exit.

Snowfall on Main Street, Magic Kingdom, Disney World

Bright colors fired both sides of the street; joyous music came from nowhere and yet everywhere. Imagineered snow flakes floated in the air all around us.

We all wore silly grins for no reason at all except that we were together, ageless and happy.

The little girl’s daddy leaned over and said, “Isn’t it pretty? It looks just like real snow, doesn’t it?”

Her reply was succinct, matter-of-fact and grown up:

“I think I’ve had enough.”

“The important thing is the family. If you can keep the family together — that’s what we hope to do.” – Walt Disney

I told Mickey, “I’ve loved you for more than 60 years.”

CarolAnn and I celebrated our 30th anniversary at Disney World in Orlando this past week. For all the technological magic and excitement we found everywhere we looked our greatest pleasure was watching young families and remembering our own.

The small moments that bring families closer together work their magic on everyone nearby. We love being collateral beneficiaries of joy and sharing with each other the children we still are at heart.

“A dream is a wish your heart makes…”

Hang the expense, it’s worth every penny and more.

Unpredictable autumn

by Dave Williams
November 3, 2018

In Texas fall teases you like a puppy. It yaps at you, snaps playfully at your fingers and then darts away to plan another surprise attack.

I wore a sweatshirt last week. Today it will be 80. Tomorrow could bring snow. It’s the wonder of Texas weather that I love because I don’t like predictability.

Life itself is unpredictable and that’s how it should be, even and maybe especially life’s tragedies.

A man arises before dawn, showers, shaves, kisses his slumbering wife and kids goodbye and then he leaves home and dies.

I don’t mean to be morose. It’s just the unpredictable nature of life.

On my early morning radio news shows I’ve told these stories daily for decades. We get used to them, both in the telling and the hearing because the stories are framed in frigid cop talk, in matter-of-fact terms detached from emotion and personal reality.

“Dallas police responded to a fatal head-on crash early this morning. Officials say a wrong-way driver slammed into a late model Toyota southbound on I-75 near Walnut Hill. The driver of the Toyota died at the scene.

We don’t even learn his name.

Let’s see how that’s affecting traffic: live with Traffic on the Fives, here’s Bill Jackson…”

Bill explains that emergency vehicles have the wreck confined to the divider with officers directing a ten minute slowdown into the right two lanes.

“Meanwhile, inbound on the Dallas North Tollway there’s a slowdown at Northwest Highway…”

The Toyota driver’s wife and kids are still sleeping as a hundred thousand commuters deal with a traffic jam.

The family will probably be wolfing down breakfast on hurried schedules when the knock comes at the door.

But, I digress. I was talking about unpredictable fall weather and the unexpected turns in our daily lives.

Most people seem to live their lives focused on annoyance, oblivious to the small joys of the moment. We worry about trivial things and bitch about each day for trivial reasons.

We wish it was summer, we wish it was Friday.

We wish away the unpredictably wonderful moments of our lives.

We’re constantly told to live for today, in the here and now, and to stop and smell the roses. I don’t know anyone who has figured out how to do that but I’m working on it.

I thank God each morning for another day of life.

I don’t wonder if He exists. I’m just happy to be grateful.

Before I go to sleep at night I conjure images of my wife and children, my grandchildren, the friends I’ve made and the handful of very special people I’ve known and loved in my life. I give thanks for them all. Then I drift off to sleep without a care in the world.

Tomorrow will be another unpredictable day and though the possibilities include everything, glorious and tragic, I’m looking forward to it.

I’m going outside to mow the lawn now. It might snow tomorrow or I could die tonight.

Photographic Treasure

This is the only picture I have of my entire family together. (I’m not in it because I was holding the camera.)

I’d like to say my family always looked this happy but that wouldn’t be true. It wouldn’t be true of any family. Old photos allow us to keep and embellish the good times when everyone was smiling because we were all really happy together, at least in that moment.

My old pictures invoke a nice warm feeling of a time when life was less complicated and when my family was together for everything including mealtimes at the table, visits with our relatives and family vacations.

This was our family vacation in McCann, Northern California, along the Eel River in August of 1964. We were there for a week which included my 13th birthday. My parents gave me a stamp collecting album and a wonderful variety pack of international postage stamps to study, sort and paste.

I also got a new, official National League baseball which my dad and I tossed back and forth for hours that week right in the middle of the dirt road outside our cabin’s front door.

McCann was already a ghost town when we were there.

It was smack dab in the middle of no place, Humboldt County. It had been a stage coach station in 1881 and a post office soon after. It tried to be a town but stumbled and failed in the thirties and forties. By the time we got there in ’64 there were no living businesses, just the dirty old windows of store fronts that had been abandoned decades earlier.

As I remember it we were there for an entire week without seeing another soul. The only traffic we saw and heard were the Northwestern Pacific freight trains that rumbled and shrieked just a few feet past our cabin in the middle of each night. When that happened we all woke up and giggled in the dark, not just us kids, our parents too.

We had no TV in that cabin and couldn’t even get a radio signal. I know because I tried. Instead we just played together. We hiked down a steep river bank to get to the water’s edge. I held my little brother’s hand as we waded into the Eel. I held onto the blowup raft with my little sister aboard and grinning from ear to ear.

Dad and I fished with salmon eggs for bait and I saw beavers playing in the water not far from the lodge they had built from the branches of young fir and redwood trees along the shore.

My mom burned my birthday cake trying to bake it in an ancient wood burning oven in the cabin. It was edible, just toasty, and I loved it because it was mine and Mom made it for me.

On my birthday I wrote a note to the future, shoved it into an empty tin can and stuck it deep inside a hollowed chunk of a tree that was still very much alive. I imagined that the tree would grow over that hole and preserve my message. Someday, I thought, someone would cut that tree down and find my hello from the past.

Wouldn’t it be something if it was found now, in the 21st century?

I remember all of that from one picture taken 55 years ago. I probably have a lot of it wrong. I just remember it as I wish to.

This picture makes me happy.