HAPPINESS IS .............

Bouquets of old spoons from the scrap yard,

Containers filled with pencils...

I LOVE pencils!

Art books... particularly African Art books,



Piles of sketchbooks filled with ideas,

Monkeys that peep .....

Sundays on the The Midlands Meander (an art route through KwaZulu Natal) .....

Browsing through country shops,

Being amazed by creatures made from wire and beads,

Stopping somewhere for tea .... lunch ..... and tea again

Beautiful scenery.... snow ..... fresh air in rural Natal

Happiness is spending time with my family (yep, that's my brother in the top right corner above ...... Lets see if he reads my blog :-)

All photos are mine except for The Dlaminis above from Zulu-Lulu Trading on the Midlands Meander.

SO MUCH HAPPINESS by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do

with so

much happiness.

With sadness there is something

to rub

against,

A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.

When the world falls in around you,

you

have pieces to pick up,

Something to hold in your hands,

like

ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.

It doesn't need you to hold it down.

It doesn't need anything.

Happiness lands on the roof

of the next

house,

singing,

And disappears when it wants to.

You are happy either way.

Even the fact that you once lived

in a

peaceful

tree

house

And now live over a quarry of noise

and

dust

Cannot make you unhappy.

Everything has a life of its own,

It too could wake up filled with possibilities

Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,

And love even the floor

which needs to

be swept,

The soiled linens and scratched records…..

Since there is no place large enough

To contain so much happiness,

You shrug, you raise your hands,

and it

flows out of

you

Into everything you touch.

You are not

responsible.

You take no credit,

as the night sky

takes no credit

For the moon, but continues to hold it,

and to share it,

And in that way, be known.

- Naomi Shihab Nye