It's 1 April today, April Fool's Day. Traditionally a light-hearted day of pranks and jokes, so it seems appropriate that I should lighten up today. I recognise that this is different to the days in which I feel grateful or positive. There is a real difference between being happy and light-hearted and being positive. I can do positive. I'm good at positive when I put my mind to it. Being positive is what I am when I am actually inwardly negative but outwardly smiling. Or at least that's part of my definition.
Happiness, that's something else. I'm not as good at that but I have know wonderful, amazing happy times and I also am able to connect with the fun-loving happy me when I choose to. I love to laugh and can honestly say that there have been times with Ralph, my kids, my friends and family when I thought I would burst from the sensations of happiness and pure unadulterated joy running through me.
To get back to today. April Fools Day has not featured much in my life. My parents never really 'got' holidays that they considered to be 'American'. Halloween, Valentine's Day, April Fools Day - all of these were somehow not Jewish or European enough for them and so usually went unmarked in my home as I was growing up. My brother who is three years younger than me, had a much more Americanised take on life than I did and wanted to celebrate all these strange holidays. I can remember one year when my brother and my cousin (at about age 10) decided to play an April Fools joke on my parents and aunt and uncle.
Earlier that day we had received a free sample of a new kind of instant coffee. Free food was always a big deal at home since food featured large in our lives and free samples, well, what a treat! My aunt and uncle often had evening coffee in our house since they only lived across the road. My brother and cousin knew this and decided to doctor the coffee sample by adding garlic powder to it. Well, four cups of coffee were made and all the adults sat down to give their verdict on this new coffee.
"Feh, yuck, terrible," they all said as they pulled faces of disgust. "What on earth were the manufacturers thinking of, making a coffee that tastes of garlic?" my uncle cried. Meanwhile, my brother and cousin had disappeared to another room and were curled up with laughter. My mother worked out that it was impossible that a manufacturer would develop a new coffee that tasted like garlic and looked around for the boys. She decided that they must have added garlic to the sugar, so without tasting the sugar, threw away the contents of the sugar bowl. This made my cousin and brother crease up with laughter until suddenly it ocurred to the gullible adults that this was some sort of prank and that the two boys must have done this.
Suddenly, all laughter stopped and the four adults were furious. "What kind of stupid trick was this? How could you ruin perfectly good food?" The resounding cry of "April Fool" did not go down as it was meant. These four little Eastern European refugees could not understand what this day was all about. It really made no sense to them. After all they had just thrown away perfectly good food. This was bordering on committing a sin.
But, you know what? I still find it funny and I still remember the look on their faces as they drank this garlic-loaded coffee and decided that American manufacturers were crazy for making this new garlic flavoured drink.
Now, don't for a minute think that I confuse amusement with genuine happiness. Of course I was deeply happy when my kids were born, when I got married, when I met Osho in India, when I went on safari, etc. Happiness is more than amusing. It's warm and fuzzy and like a blanket of delight that you can wrap around yourself on cold nights. I can feel like this even on the days when I feel really dismal and sometimes it confuses me to experience these contradictions.
Life is not simple and I certainly have a way of complicating things. I do go up and down and my moods vary as much as the weather, but today I have to say I feel pretty happy. Ralph phoned my four times today to badger me to meet him for afternoon tea which I did. We are just at the beginning of two weeks of time off work together. A holiday in Berlin and Hamburg is on the horizon and life feels pretty good.
I get nervous even saying that things feel good. There is a part of me that is still afraid to tempt the gods, but today being April Fools Day maybe the gods are busy elsewhere and maybe, just maybe, they think that the idea of my being happy is an April Fools joke. Maybe, but it still feels good to me, so I'm just going to luxuriate in this feeling for a while.
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