Jan 27
Happiness
Christina, a friend of Patrick’s from America, is creating a book on Happiness. To do this, she’s using the people who have made me happiest in life, and the people who have made you happiest in yours.
So why not go help out? Head over to happymem.com and submit your story.
An instance you always look back on that makes you smile or laugh. A time in your life that you thought was miserable but, looking back, was magical. You can be brief or prolific, silly or profound. You can give background details or you can leave them out. You can focus on the minute, the hour, the weekend, the year. Spend a little while thinking (it’ll be fun, I promise) and then start typing. If you’d like to submit anonymously, feel free.
Here was mine:
I climbed the last of the subway steps and looked around, watching my breath rise in bursts in front of me. “Look for the grandiose buildings”. I recited John’s instructions to myself. As I gauged the lofty stone buildings in front of me, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and turned on my heel to push the button for the pedestrian crossing to continue my journey, which had begun at 7am Irish time earlier — much earlier — that day. John had also warned me that Boston drivers were unforgiving and sure enough, those Chrysler bumpers looked like they could make short work of me. While I was waiting, I extracted my (well, John’s, technically) small video camera from my jacket pocket.
“Pan across Boston at night” I narrated, swiveling around to take in as much of the city as possible in my short video. “It’s been a long day but it shouldn’t be too long more to the café. Like Patrick said -”
My voice-over was cut off by the low bleeping of the traffic light as the little green man made his much-anticipated appearance. Hastily stowing the camera back in my pocket, I crossed the road.
Crema Café, it aspired, was hidden away in a corner of Brattle Street, between a restaurant and what appeared to be a mountaineering store. I stepped in and was immediately greeted with the low babble of talk and the smell of coffee and cinnamon. The place was busy, but not crowded so full that movement or discussion was restricted. No tables were free downstairs so I climbed up the stairs at the back to the balcony of sorts. It was less full — perhaps thanks to the friendly chalkboard message requesting that patrons limit their time at the tables to one hour. Shrugging off my jacket and scarf, I retrieved my book — The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown — from the depths of my bag, trying not to let the contents of my over-packed bag spill out onto the floor. Then, I settled down to wait for one of my brothers to show up, and thus, a great weekend was preordained.
Go on, click here to submit
