Admittedly, I was taken aback. It was 11 am on a Saturday morning. I wasn't even hungry yet, let alone hungry for jellyfish or introspection. I was still too close to sleep to consider any other source of happiness.
"Hmmmm...that's a toughie," I said. "I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before." I looked at my companion. I figured by now he could answer as well as I because in some ways it felt as if we'd known each other forever. He just looked back at me with that cute face that is way too cute.
"Besides," I continued, "usually I'm the one asking these sorts of questions! Then I give people time to write out an answer in the way of a story..."
Why had I drawn a blank? Were there too many? Not enough? Or was it simply that I loved loved loved being asked this question? An invitation to revisit. To live it over again.
The easy answer would have been: "the moment my son was born." But that's a different kind of happy. A no-brainer happy. And then I could have gone on and on about the countless happy moments we've shared as mother and child, but again, that would be cheating.
Eventually, I committed to the theme of bike riding. How when I first moved here I rode endlessly into the warm summer nights, delighting in the quaint flatlands, the small town, wide-streeted easiness and openness of touring my new home, taking in this earnest Midwestern culture that was entirely new to me and realizing how much childlike glee it awoke in me: the fenceless backyards, grass so green I wanted to lick it, porch swings (porches!) flower beds, cicadas, street lamps, the way people pronounce car and refer to Coke as "pop"...
I was on a roll. I talked about biking with my dad in various parts of the country. I confessed that I still have Jude in a bike carrier in the back so I can keep him close as we descend into the magical greens of Minnehaha Parkway, singing our favorite songs as we fly through the curves and jungle, racing the flowing creek beside us. "I'm a bit of an adrenaline junky," I admit, "which goes well with parenting."
Then I put a hand to that cute face, the face of this man's son. "Of course laughing with this guy makes me happy."
My companion's father smiled, obviously pleased. In that moment, he looked a lot like my father—there are some touching similarities between the two. I think I may have thought for a moment I was actually talking to my dad. That made me happy, though I did not know it at the time. Now it is a happy memory.
I could have said more. A lot more. I don't know why I didn't. I don't know why I hesitate to write what that "more" would have been. Perhaps it's because on some level I suspected things weren't going to work out. That if I asserted myself too far into the fabric of this family I would inevitably mourn for it too much when it was gone, longing for another mundane, obligatory, way too early Saturday morning meal out in a dingy kitschy basement eating pickled jellyfish on Eat Street.
Or maybe it's because we were sort of in a fight and I was feeling stingy.
I volleyed the question back to the father, a man who has lived almost twice as long as I.
"Gee," he said, "I never thought about it..."
"SEE?!" I said, "it's harder than it seems."
But it wasn't long before he was off in memory bliss. A light went on, one I'd not yet seen or thought possible, but there it was, radiating from his entire being when he talked about being a young father to my companion. It was as beautiful as a rare sunset, a real rayon verte. It remained as he described a childhood memory with his sister, one of the few he recalls of actually being allowed to be a child, a rare freedom to play, which I get the feeling was so scarce that he actually had to sneak it behind the backs of overly stern parents, the same way I had to sneak pot and cigarettes, but realistically, not really.
Eventually my companion took a turn, then his mother. I believe I took another turn as I simply could not help it. Honestly, we could've gone around the table for hours. Well... at least me and Too Cute Face's father. It was reminding me a lot of being around the table with my parents and how much I missed that. How much we all loved those lingering times around the various dining rooms of our separate homes, restaurants, vacation places, etc, where we could always find a place of peace and neutrality, because, as in any family, we had our family history. Even though my parents were divorced and I'd been twice so, we all gathered year after year, entertaining one of my dad's many random questions (Do you prefer Washington or Lincoln?), which inevitably led us down some happy memory lane or another.
Life is really funny, isn't it? Funny ironic, I mean. Because if ever comes a time when you are really struggling to remember a single happy memory, you will likely fail to recognize that you are in the midst of making one.
What's your happiest memory?
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