Einfach mal einen Gang runterschalten und uns auf das konzentrieren, was uns wirklich glücklich macht – ist das nicht ein Menschenrecht? Das Nachdenken über diese Frage führt unsere Bloggerin Auntie Sam an ungewöhnliche Orte und zurück zur ersten Erinnerung an Glück überhaupt.
Dear Auntie SAM: Hello Auntie! I just had a thought, sort of an idea for one of your articles in your new blog. It is generally about downshifting and a human’s right not to be successful all the time but to focus more on something what makes him really happy. In any case, all the best, and see you some day! ??
If my parents had been born in a different era, their marriage may have lasted; my dad may still be living.
They found each other after school, eating pizza in a soda shop. My dad had noticed my mom long before that day they met. She was – still is – beautiful.
She was never alone; never single. Until that fateful day she finally was & my dad’s quirky charms ambled over to steal her heart.
My mom made the dresses for their wedding. My dad wore his father’s tie. I joined them shortly after, & we set up house on an abandoned, haunted island in the Maumee.
My only limits as a child were where water married mud. As the only people on the island, I was allowed free reign. Free to explore. Free to observe. Free just to be.
When I started school I learned everyone thought they were crazy. Reckless, even. Camping 24/7, growing food, eating kill on a haunted island — with three young girls.
Soon farmers on the mainland took up pitchforks & lit torches. Or something like that. Our lives on that island ended & shortly thereafter, so did my family.
You wrote me this very kind message long ago. I did not forget it; in fact, I’ve thought of it often over the months.
Perhaps it’s my legal background, or maybe my philosophical one, but the word «right» trips me. As an American, my constitution asserts I have the right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness. As an expat in Switzerland, the only right I know I have is to stay as long as the migration bureau & my husband let me.
In that sense, my cats have more rights than I do.
Even still, whatever my rights are, they surely stop wherever the dominant society decides.
As we go through life discovering & determining what makes us happy, sometimes we also learn: no, we don’t have the right to that which makes our hearts sing.
On that island I lay in the grass one sunny afternoon watching a spider crawl & dance on its cobweb drenched with dew. The sunshine sparkled like a thousand diamonds. The grass, the most beautiful shades of green. My dad was riding his horse, our Husky trailing them slightly his tail in the air. My mom in her garden, with my sister strapped to her chest. My other sister played sweetly nearby.
We were happy. And that’s my first memory of joy.
When I think about that island, I don’t recall the ways it ended. How we & our animals were hurt. The years we fought for happiness.
I recall that spider, that dew, that sunshine, & our family. That’s my right. The one no one can change or take away from me.
Though, perhaps even more than my right, in this complex, complicit society in which we each quest for happiness: my responsibility.
XO
AS
__
Set free YOUR INNER PUCK at the MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DANCE: guitarist & singer TOBIAS CARSHEY & SAME DAY RECORDS will play the tunes in the ELEPHANT GARDEN at VITRA (Weil am Rhein). THURSDAY EVENING, FREE.
Then go deep … DEEP HOUSE, that is, at the last FEDERLEICHT with DJ VARIO VOLINSKI, plus DJ STRASSENMAJOR & DJ HECHT&ZANDER. JäGGERHALLE. FRIDAY, 11PM.