Don't Worry, Be Happy (Bobby McFerrin)

I am most definitely a *wallow* kinda woman... and I am prone to immerse myself in an emotion until I can no longer cry another tear/feel another heart twinge/bear another self-pitying moment - when I finally reach that "life chose me after all" (Dar) epiphany, damn the torpedoes! The lows might be low, but god love those highs - I always manage to find my way through to the other side, with an extensive gratitude list to show for it... :-)

SONG: Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin

BOOK: The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It by David Niven

POEM: Feeling Sorry for Myself by Charles Harper Webb

I start with a groan, swelling to a moan,

rising to a keen, ascending

to a shriek that tapers off in a thin wail.

I hug myself and, whimpering,

rock back and forth on my heels.

No one has ever known such sadness.

No one can grasp how I feel.

I smash an egg over each eye.

I smear my face with coal and pepper.

I wear a paper bag soaked through

with spoiled watermelon and pork grease.

I shred my happy past - my books,

pictures, and poems, published or not.

I'll never fly fish again.

I'll never make love again.

I'll never sit outside and watch night

stretch its starry tent over the sky.

There will be no more metaphors.

I am more sorrowful than a sorrowing man.

Life has no more meaning to me

than a life without meaning.

My heart slows. My blood congeals

to brown, vein-clogging mush.

My stomach goes on strike; my colon

bars its door. People assume

I'm terminal. They imagine what

would make them feel the way I look,

and project their paltry problems onto me.

As if they could fathom my misery

by waterwinging over its abyss!

My pain is too heavy to lift,

too vast to measure, too ineffable to name,

and incalculably too precious to share.

I dig my grave in a landfill, and topple in.

I rub dirt and dog droppings in my hair.

I've sunk so low it's funny; so I start to giggle.

Then to chortle. Then to roar. Mothers

clutch their bleating kids, and rush away.

Gangbangers dash to the far side of the street.

I crawl out of my grave, strip, and shower

with a gunk-filled water hose.

I shake and shiver, grinning, in the filthy air.

QUOTE: "What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life." ~ Leo Buscaglia