Happiness in the Time of Covid19

Stephan Gross inspired tonight’s rambling blog entry  by a comment he made today, to wit:

  “Peter, you’re so happy all the time, energetic and eager about life.”

Well, I am happy most of the time: drug free, and only a modicum of wine at day’s end.  I’m healthy, even though having fake everything and needing a dozen medications every day.

The recent Covid19 “Shelter At Home” edict has actually been a positive for me: (1) reduced stress in not having Grand Jury meetings and the burdens of recruitment goals, (2) no plays at the Library to help produce, (3) no book clubs or movie nights to organize and stage.

Don’t get me wrong, I Love These Things.  They are my on-going, Social Gathering Lifestyle.  But it’s nice to have a vacation, and now I’m planning on how to have all these things accomplished through ZOOM, in the future.

In my vacation, meantime, I get enormous pleasure from the smallest things: today I fixed a chair, an old Polish chair, that I bought in England.  It’s totally weird, and thus unique, and thus super-interesting.  With wood that a carpenter bends to form a chairback, or other part of the chair, they normally put so much effort into bending the wood, that they would make sure that the joins: arms to seat, back to base, legs to supports, would be crafted with dowels, tiny screws, hidden joins.  But NO, these guys used machine screws and nuts.!!!  Now it’s possible that this piece got remade at some point, but if that’s the case, I’ve joined in the remake.  I had to repair four joints: three with wood screws and one with a machine bolt and nut.  It functions again, for a while.

It’s especially true that for old things, for us old people, getting them to work again is personally pleasing.  I’ve fixed three English floor lamps that were having a hard time transitioning to America.

Why am I happy today?: I got a 4-month license extension from the DMV, the butterflies came back this week, the finches have had their babies, my new cat has not turned to the dark side, my house is clean, my toilets are not clogged, I have no fever, no cough, no congestion, no aches, no pains, I have faint romantic springtime memories of April in Paris, the Jasmine smells sweet, I could fall in Love next week with a million things or people.