Recently, a good friend challenged me to come up with a list of those things that made me happy.

I was vexed.

I was annoyed.

And I thought this was a stupid waste of time idea. One of those “The Artist’s  Way” self help kind of indulgent crap ideas. (You can probably tell I’m going through some stressful times here. Hence the negativity.)

But I also know that when I’ve written for my characters in plays, I’ve made lists of what they loved, liked, hated, wanted, and actually, what made them happy.

Part of that research fantasy.

So here is this damn list:

This list was written on February 22nd.

Since  February 22nd:

A good friend paid for a cord of firewood to be delivered to our house.

I’m slowly reading the book “Fools and Mortals” by Bernard Cornwall – I don’t want it to end.

I started wearing perfume again. Including a new rose perfume from Istanbul, thanks to a friend.

I bought another hummingbird feeder, and now there are six feeders. Many hummingbirds.

We went to see the opera – “Orpeus & Eurydice” at the Dorothy Chandler. It was strange, wonderful, good, bad, compelling and produced with dream like theatricality.

We’re now putting together an irrigation system for the house, hundreds and hundreds of dollars later, after the toilet blew up and the water regulator bit the dust. I didn’t think that would make me happy and it didn’t.

And we burned some incense.

I didn’t think that “things” could make me happy right now.

But on the other side of this damn list, I gave myself the assignment of finding something that I look at, every day, that makes me happy.

Cat paws, chocolate cake, hummingbirds, morning dew on grass, homemade soup, a full moon.

I’m seeing it more as “character development”, than an “artist’s date”.  And that seems to be real progress for me.

 

 

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