My hands, they are my own...

In this post, I want to talk about happiness, or really, the pursuit of. I keep coming back again and again to the concept. What does it mean to be happy? How are we supposed to find this happiness?

We have been told that it is supposed to come through work...work...working in the U.S. of A. We are defined not by who we are, but by what we do-right?

I mean isn't that strange that upon meeting someone you are asked, of course, your name, and then...'what do you do'? Every time I am asked that, I am jolted back into a steam of linear thinking, 'well, what do I do? I take care of the people I love, I cook good food, I grow food wherever I can, I interact with people and form relationships, I laugh with my girlfriends, I listen to the radio, I smoke a little bit, I roll around the house with my dogs, I take long baths, I go for a walk everyday, I ride my bike, I work on the computer, I worry (always to much, says Matt) I mull over my theoretical underpinnings of my master's thesis, I think...about a lot of things, and I love- I love my partner, my family, my friends, I love my community.

All of this, yet every time I am asked 'what do you do?' I say, 'I work at Making Headway, my title is community development." This is but one small piece of what I do in the world, yet when they ask what do you do, I say this every time. Where is the disconnect? How do orient myself and my life to reflect all of the fragmented pieces of my being?

Humans are builders, maybe that is why we are so fascinated by ant colonies, I mean really, how many Discovery Show specials have you seen were they are just following ants around with little tiny cameras as they hold huge pieces of food and sacrifice themselves for the queen. The voice-over guy always talks about how ant's whole lives are based around working, for the good of the colony, for the benefit of their species, and isn't that crazy, could you imagine that being your lot in life. Selfless little creatures, the voice-over concludes; when one falls, within seconds he will be replaced with an equally diligent, hard-working peer.

Is that how we are, I am? Replace-able? Dispensable? This is a good question, what about me isn't replace-able? It seems like all of the various things I do in my life, all of the things that give me pleasure, enjoyment, and fulfillment; these are the un-said, unspoken, invisible elements of life, my essence. My happiness, or the pursuit of.

My challenge is to push these aspects of my life to the forefront, to connect the things that make me happy, to the things that I actually do. I am not defined by an office, I am not defined by a wage, I am defined by how I live and who I love and what we do together. So I pity the next person who asks me what I do, I guess my response, and yours, should be, 'what don't I do?'

cocoon

On my typical rounds through my narrow little garden space I found that a few oregano leaves were entangled together, thinking that they must have been damaged or some sap must have fallen on them and made them stick together, I foolishly un-crumpled them. A little clear, eerily glowing caterpillar fell out and squirmed around in my hand. I realized what I had done, I had awaken this sleepy little ghostly clear fellow from a long a peaceful slumber. One in which he carefully worked all night to gather the leaves firmly around him pasting them meticulously until they created firm and impassable walls. Falling into a long and deep sleep, knowing that when he awoke he would be able to fly. And then, there was me, a huge, and curious monster, trampling the finely sown leaves to see what lies beneath, destroying this intricate little home. And who knows, this may have been a monarch, the worlds most illusive butterfly, this could have been the key to have a butterfly fly-way right through my shotgun garden, my little oasis that privately sits between the back of my garage and the neighbors fence. Instantly feeling like the destructive primate that we are, I searched for the little clear wiggler that slipped from my hand and fell into the blanket of undergrowth sprouting new Italian laced recipes with every shoot. I tried to carefully pick up each leaf, not wanted to hurt this little beast, but knowing that I probably would just by my sheer size, I imagined what it must feel like to him, being violently interrupted by a huge and huffing being, that first exposure to sunlight after who knows how long you had been asleep! Your skin is all pale and your eyes just aren't equipped to handle the blur of light and then this thing just drops you! Like an after thought, you are sprawling into the abyss of god knows what on the dirt floor. It is cold, and your warm little cocoon is gone, destroyed by the bumbling hands of a human. If this had happened to me, I would have been pissed, I would have crawled into her little hand and taken a big bite out of the tenderest part of her finger. To be honest, I would have felt better if there was some retribution that I could have paid, but this is life on the planet earth-destruction, creation, death and birth-the cycles are all there. Sitting there hunched over my little herb patch I let go, I forgave myself for waking this little wonder, for perhaps destroying it's life, where does it go when it is practically translucent? I promised that I would be a little more mindful in the garden, a little more cautious of where I stepped, what I let my dog dig up and so on. My garden is an oasis, not just for me, but for the bees I try to house, the ladybugs I seek to encourage and yes, even the aphids that live on my cabbage, it is a place where nature happens, where I don't try to fight the elements or pave the walk ways. Today I walked back into my garden, my translucent caterpillar lesson in hand and I walked back to where the massacre occurred, and there it was, a fresh, new, cocoon, resurrected right next to the old crumpled ruin, my caterpillar found his way back, built a new home and went to sleep again. Sometimes when we let go and don't try to interfere, nature will mend itself, she forgives, and then she rebuilds, with or without us.