Best and Happiest Days

A New York Times article a few years back recommended that for your New Year's resolution, you make a habit to take note of those times when you are really happy! I do. It is like the gratitudes - it changes your life. Today was one of those happiest days.

My day began with my dog walk which today was to the Post Office to mail some postcards I'd had made of my latest paintings, but that wasn't the happiest part, maybe it was for my dog, Uma though.

When I got home, I laid out her dog bones and biscuits, her treats for when I go somewhere without her, then I set off for my Chair Yoga class at The Station in Merchantville. I have written about The Station, also known as Eiland Arts Center on 10 E. Chestnut St. in Merchantville, NJ before. It is a cafe' with excellent food, the most delicious soups imaginable, and it is an Art Gallery. Sometimes, they also have live music!

In the upstairs Gallery, they have Yoga classes, and my class, Seated Chair Yoga, is at 10:15 which is the perfect time for me to get up, wash and dress, walk the dog and get to class without stress. Seated yoga is also the only yoga I can still do with my declining joints. Today, however, there was a bit of stress because on the way, there was a trash truck, a Fed Ex truck, a public service bus and I caught EVERY red light between my town and Merchantville, but I did get there close to on time. I always try to be perfectly punctual. I think I was 5 minutes late. I tried not to let it stress me out too much, though, because it is YOGA! The practice is all about relaxing. The motto is "Do no harm to others or to yourself." I love that thought.,

I have made it my special practice to forget time and concentrate all my mind on the motions, my breathing, my body, make it meditative, not an exercise class. It works. I no longer think about time when I am there. I am in the FLOW! And when I get up to leave, I am so loose and relaxed that I feel very different from the person who walked in. Today I was musing on my way in, that it used to cost about $150 for me to get my hair colored: highlights, low lights, ash blonde color, washed, cut and styled and blow dried. That would last about 2 months or so. That same amount of money bought me 8 weeks of Seated Yoga once a week! I stopped getting my hair done the year of the pandemic and I am saving a lot of money which I can now use on paying my sister to help clean and on yoga classes

After Yoga, down in the cafe' I buy the soup of the day; today it was herbed potato soup, to take home for lunch. And I bought my favorite coffee treat: pumpkin spice latte' which gives me a nice gentle energy push to get some art work done.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been working on 6 x 6 inch canveses for a Fundraising effort at the Station. Artists are picking up the free canveses and painting on it and donating the work. All money raised goes directly to Fishtails Animal Rescue. So far I have done five: 1-Girl with jumping cat 2-Man with jumping dog 3-Luna moth 4-Lucy the Elephant in Margate 5-a 3 dimensional shark advertising miniature golf at the seashore. Next I am going to do a rabbit from the back yard and maybe the T-Rex outside the Museum of Natural Science, or maybe a snowy owl, or maybe my cat Lucky on the fence like a tightrope walker. could even decide to do a cow or a chicken. Don't know yet.

Anyhow I was really happy today, really joyful which felt like sunshine inside beaming out, an uplift like being buoyed on an under tide of warmth and goodness, a kind of effervescence. And this blog post is me "taking note of when I feel happy!" Hope you find your happiness too! Jo Ann wright45@yahoo.com