What cartoon was that, where the characters used to sing “happy happy joy joy”?  I can’t quite pull the name from the depths of my memory, but the song has been running through my head like a mantra.  Resolving to have more fun in the New Year seems to have been good for me.  I have been in a very good mood for about two weeks or so.  I just feel, well, happy!

So many good things are happening — we have a new president, I love my job, my mom is buying a house and moving near us, I’m embarking on a new endeavor (triathlon training), my husband’s company is launching, my kids are doing well.

The last year was hard.  I still miss my dad like crazy.  But it’s good to be happy again — I feel like my heart is bursting out of its bubblewrapped shell.  What a great feeling, to be walking through life with a wide-open heart again.

I came across this Rumi poem yesterday, and it seems the perfect reflection of what I’m feeling now:

THE WAY THINGS SHOULD

What will
our children do in the morning?

Will they wake with their hearts wanting to play,
the way wings
should?

Will they have dreamed the needed flights and gathered
the strength from the planets that all
men and women need to balance
the wonderful charms of
the earth

so that her power and beauty does not make us forget our own?

I know all about the ways of the heart – how it wants to be alive.

Love so needs to love
that it will endure almost anything, even abuse,
just to flicker for a moment. But the sky’s mouth is kind,
its song will never hurt you, for I sing those words.

What will our children do in the morning
if they do not see us
fly?

- Rumi