Karel Barnoski was playing one of his Tuesday night jams on FaceBook and I was watching a video of the Amsterdam Mall (now Riverfront Center) and suddenly I was brought back to 1983 all over again. That’s what happens on Tuesdays now, I guess. Recalling some remnant of childhood innocence for a moment, I gave myself a brief break – a pause from trying to accept imperfection, a pause in trying to reject perfection – and in that space came the realization that maybe I’m trying too hard, or maybe just about to burn out. There are trying times – we’ve been in such a state since last March, and as we creep up on a full year of living in this way some things may be catching up with me. I’m ok with acknowledging that I’m wiped out, and in these last weeks of winter it seems a good time to re-charge for spring. It helps to own up to that, to take a moment and set down the struggle.
I’ve also learned that sometimes we have to fake it until we make it, to forge the physical manifestations of happiness as a way of willing it into existence. If you force yourself to smile and laugh, it miraculously makes you feel a little happier, no matter how fake or false it might initially feel. (At the very least you may end up making yourself laugh by how ridiculous and silly it all feels – which is accomplishing the very same mission in a roundabout way.) In all these years of posing for selfies and photographs, I’ve learned to fake the little laugh that makes for a better picture, and even if the joy is diminished from the laugh or guffaw that might result from an actual dinner with Suzie or pre-movie jaunt with Skip, it’s still joy, albeit on a much smaller level.
Little joys are all we have.
So smile, and laugh, and preen and pose, as if all was right with the world, because someone has to lead the way.
