Why wait to be happy?

“You make yourself available to life and life becomes available to you.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

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01.
I woke up late this morning. I was not late for anything in particular. Just later than usual. Than I would like. Than I would like…
02.
When did it begin? That I have come to like the notion, the feeling of being the first to get to a new day. Before the sun. Before the birds. Before the world outside the window as far as my eyes can see. Before the world(s) inside the still-dark mode of The Phone. Before you.
03.
But,
maybe it’s not so much about being first (this the competitive Aries in me shall challenge) as it is about being free. Arriving at a new day when it's Quiet, Still as the mirror surface of a pond unperturbed yet by falling leaves, by wind and woes. This small hour, at least, is all mine. 

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04.
I move slowly—
As I please
Steps mindful, almost secretive
Feel the cold water touch then leave my skin
I lift the porcelain cup by its fragile ear to my lip
and lower it back on its saucer—
Clink (shhh don't wake them now, not yet).
Slowly—
My natural rhythm, if I'm honest,
if I am not trying to keep up with Them,
run a race out of breath 'til I'm blue in the soul,
their race not mine.
In harmony with the metronome of my heart
Peace
I like it here.
Every gesture, every breath a home-coming.
I stand as if afloat in space
on an imperfect moon of lotus leaf—
No woman’s daughter,
(no daughter's mother in an un-lived life),
sister and friend to no one, not a girlfriend,
not a traveller, no wanderer,
not yet a writer.
I am just me.
Breathing my existence
into existence.

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05.
So, yes. I like the idea of arriving first and free at a new day, to meet today's self, no one else, exactly like this. I like it even more when I actually could, and do. Today, I could not, and did not.
08:23am.
I sat up, sun's light spilling in through curtain gaps. (Despite your best efforts, you can't keep the light out. The sun always rises. Light—takes only a single drop—erases the dark. You can keep your eyes closed, be my guest, but eventually... eventually all the lies you tell yourself will come to light, too.) I draped my legs, bare, over the edge of the bed, feet, socked, hovering an inch above floor. Sat still like that for a while more. Breathed in, exhaled, breathed in, sighed. Let it all go.
06.
Compassion, my love.
Change the direction of your thoughts, breath by breath, to change the direction of your reality. There is still a lot of today left to accomplish. There is still a lot of you to... There is still time. Only time. You're not too late. Not too late at all.
07.
At the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Thich Nhat Hanh found me:

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08.
Better now. Though still a little sore that I didn't have "enough time" to start the day in an ideal manner:
Yoga,
meditation,
journal.
But what a strange conviction. Not enough time. Each day I determine my own raison d'être. Time is what I choose to do with it. It is not that I do not have enough time, it is that I am not doing enough of what produces joy and meaning with the time I have.
And what of the conditions—and confines—I have come to believe to be ideal for living? Are they, still? I was a different person when I defined those set of rules for myself. When our self-care rituals begin to make us feel less well-being and more like being in a well—trapped in another one of our narratives (was it even ours to begin with?), another performance loop, believing that limited view to be Life itself, it is time for change.

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09.
The best cure for my mood, this restless ambivalence, is to hop straight to work. As I start writing, the word "happy" echoes in my thoughts. Happy. Could this be a self-care mechanism to override any leftover negativity? Change the direction of your thoughts...
What made you happy these two weeks?
Where were you, what were you doing when you felt happy?

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10.
Food. Since I arrived here, I've heard myself say out loud "I'm so happy" more times than I might have done all year. Releasing the chasing, expecting, and manipulating (work in progress)—the Happy Chiang Mai shows me is simple and unpretentious. Being all here with what is.
The pleasure of tasting something good—or new and surprising. I've always loved food, but lately it seems I'm able to be more present and appreciative of these gifts—of the Earth, and of the People who made them with their care and attention. You could always tell—a thing made with heart.
Simple, I said, but simple is hardly easy.

“We continue to run into the future where we think that some happiness may be waiting.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

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11a.
Unexpectedly inspired by my delectable adventures, the typing took over—a record of moments, places, flavours that elicited pure joy in Chiang Mai. This morning already history.
11b.
Beginning well matters.
A less-than-ideal beginning is not the end.
Because to begin at all, to begin again, and then again, matters more.
And so we must keep going, keep moving forward however drab now may feel. You never know, the next delicious thing is very possibly right around the corner, waiting to surprise you.