The Happiness Myth_ An Expose - Jennifer Hecht [61]
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blesséd and could bless.
Such a moment is usually so hard to articulate that we tell only a few people about it, ever, and draw on it for our sense of wonder across decades. Epicurus said that the only positive attribute we can ascribe to the gods is that they are always happy like this. It was a deep recognition of the holiness of this elusive, ghostlike thing, the mood of bliss. The detail Yeats gives seems to be there to show us that the setting was ordinary, had nothing to do with what happened to him. But since it would be nice to be able to re-create his elation, let’s look anyway. I am moved to see the crowd, and what I assume to be an empty cup of tea.
Poetry seems to be the only place these flights of joy are described. Jane Kenyon’s poem says that our blues defend our blues, but that when happiness shows up, the blues have no chance; happiness will win:
Happiness
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
In such heaviness, out of such dark clouds, happiness is the magical uncle who comes out of the sky in a plane just for you. People get happiness in occasional flare-ups, in all sorts of situations, despite ignorance and despite wisdom. The presence of wine does not escape us.
Consider this final poem of happiness oddly descending. It is by Raymond Carver, more famous for his short stories than his poetry, and more famous for his drinking and desperation than for his later, happier years.
Happiness
So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
It is only for a minute that death and ambition do not enter into it. Still, you can feel his minute. Happiness comes on unexpectedly. There was also a cup of coffee. I’m being a little cheeky, mentioning these beverages, but I think it is fun that even in these master expressions of unprovoked happiness, we still find tea, wine, and coffee.
Imagine that three hundred years into the future our culture has become interested only in the metaphysical, as has occurred in some extraordinary and long periods of history around the world. There have been huge Buddhist societies where most young