Lighten Up

Yes, these are hard times, but I felt a pure sense of joy yesterday walking on empty roads through the west end savanna on a watercolor day to visit a dear friend who lives on a hilltop. Give me the simple motion of walking, the air on my face, a certain quality of light, and this beloved landscape, and before you know it, I am giddy. It passes, but it’s good while it’s happening.

Anyway, the friend I was visiting is a former professor, a wise, kind man in his late eighties, whose name, believe it or not, is Aristotle. We sit outside on his deck, masked and distanced, and there’s a view of San Miguel Island on the hazy horizon, and his house is stark white in the sunlight, and I secretly pretend I’m vacationing in Greece. I’m annoyingly cheerful.

He, on the other hand, can best be described as ruefully reflective.

“These were supposed to be my golden retirement years,” says my friend. “This is definitely not what I envisioned, although it’s certainly causing us to learn a lot about people, most of which makes me very pessimistic.”

“It’s a good time to learn a lot about ourselves, too,” I chirp.

“Oh. I am soooo tired of myself,” says Aristotle.

I get it. Too much self-observation becomes terribly tedious, and there aren’t many surprises. Certainly, I’m old news to Cynthia.

Twenty years ago I used to pay a psychologist to help me study myself. He would take notes on a yellow pad while we talked, and hand me a summary at the conclusion of each session. A few days ago I happened to come across the yellow-page notes he handed me on my final visit, sort of a prescription for the rest of my life. “Lessen your sense of responsibility,” he wrote. “Be happy.” “Be accessible.” “Experience life without a biblical theme.”

And the last words, on a line all their own: “Lighten up.”

It struck me as fascinating that the advice of two decades ago still seemed so pertinent. Maybe I’m just not learning. Or, more likely, I have to keep learning…and re-learning. Certain tendencies are hard to overcome.

This psychologist once described my family as “its own religion”, an epic replete with saints, martyrdom, unabsolved guilt, and constant search for redemption. I didn’t much like this thesis, but my husband thought it was very perceptive. I can see its validity now, and I have to admit that I still veer around in biblical territory quite often, but at least I’m somewhat aware of it.

On the other hand, there are also periods in each day when I am all of the things my therapist urged me to be: accessible, happy, and light. It’s doable…and necessary.

So I walk back, past the grassland, up and down hills to a little copse of roadside oaks, and in the dappled light, that giddiness comes over me, and I let myself feel it.

Being happy is so counter-intuitive, but we will not survive without some grasp of it.