Living Happiness

I woke up this Saturday morning with a song in my heart. It is Saturday, Easter Saturday, and the day is open to possibilities.

Today stands in stark contrast to last Saturday. Last Saturday my heart was weighted and heavy, burdened down with the sorrow of a dying friendship, tangled up in the cords I was trying to keep taut and keep this relationship pressed to me. But at some point later in the week, I was asked to let go. And I did.

The person doing the asking was me. I heard myself clearly say, “Let go.” And that was it.

This was not an easy thing for me to do, and in the days of once upon a time I’ve mentioned, it was even harder. But I am practicing, and this releasing of things is becoming an accepted part of my life: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

The good thing about this letting go is how quickly the Universe has stepped in to say, “Yes, Chania Girl, you did the right thing. Now there’s room for better things in your life,” at which point it reveals its gifts: a brand-new home and (another of my prayers answered) a possible place to stay when I visit the States this summer. And this is the nature of letting go, really. Almost without exception, when I finally decide to “Let go and let god” in my life, god gets moving in a heartbeat as if to say, “See? What are you so worried about?” And my life, stopped up by obstacles and dead ends, becomes flow again.

I’m glad I get these reminders, these affirmations. Otherwise I might be learning the whole Letting Go philosophy a lot more slowly. Yet, even as I write this, I do know that there are times where the empty spaces left in our lives are not so readily filled, and we must patiently wait for the blessing that will fill them. Either that … or learn to be our own blessing.

At any rate, now it is Easter Saturday morning here in Crete, and the lamb has been bought, the tsoureki (alright already) will be made, and the day is still “fresh, with no mistakes.”

Possibilities …

I woke up this morning far too early. The morning sun started shining in on me at 6 a.m. and my mind awakened to thoughts of our new place: a house with a lemon tree. And a pomegranate tree, and a fig tree, and a mandarin tree, and an avocado tree. I see the sun shining through the leaves in the first dew of morning and the glint of snow on the mountains in the distance, hear the cock crowing down the street, and know that this new place (remembered in my mind’s eye) is going to be my new home. I am overjoyed. (Can one truly be overjoyed? I say it’s a good thing).

This morning we will go and sign more papers and make arrangements for electricians to install phone jacks and internet technicians to set up service. And then we will begin preparing our Easter weekend feast–a trip to the shops for the makings of our Cypriot lamb and the tsoureki I keep talking about but haven’t attempted yet. We will buy our lambadas (the special candles we will take with us to the church to receive the Holy Light) and dye our eggs (a day late but …) and then we will wait for Easter Sunday to arrive.

It is Good Friday. Today is good.