Retracing Happiness

I try to retrace happiness -

the smell in my aunts stable

the smell of the cows

my favourite was red and named Mia

I used to spend the summers there

as a girl

driving the tractor over the fields

running across the meadows

free and wild

feeding the little pigs

the calves rubbing their noses against me

I don’t remember much happiness

but never thought I was not happy

I just didn’t know how happiness felt

and took what I had for it.

I try to retrace happiness -

the cool water and the hot sun

on my skin when I went swimming

with another aunt

she threw me into the water

we sun bathed side by side on a blanket

I told her stories and looked at her painted toenails

she taught me how to swim

I ate French fries at the pool with her

before she had children of her own

she took me and I wanted her to be my mom

I don’t remember much happiness

but never thought I was not happy

I just didn’t know how happiness felt

and took what I had for it

I don’t remember that I missed feeling happy

I wasn’t aware of the fact that people

could be happy  all the time

the option to choose happiness

for me it was a gift,

totally at random

given to you from the universe

or god or destiny

some had it, some didn’t

it was delivered to you out of the blue

I don’t remember anybody in my family

ever saying: let’s be happy!

What is happiness anyway?