Pleasant Living Magazine

Authentically Happy: Loving Life and My Companions Therein

Though I’ve always strived to better myself, rarely have I experienced changes that vaulted me forward in a single leap, like landing at the bottom of a ladder in Chutes and Ladders, the classic kids’ game that often seems to last as long as life itself.

I’ve experienced slow growth, plodding along ever upward. I’ve had my share of chutes—those painful times when your playing piece is sent plummeting back down the board. I’d pull myself up, gradually regaining lost ground and learning lessons in the process. However, few times have I landed on a space that catapulted me ahead in one giant leap.

One author did just that for me, in his life-changing tome that spoke to who I am and who I can become—and to how I can better love my companions in life. The book, Authentic Happiness, by Martin Seligman, Ph.D., makes the rational case for looking on the bright side of life. Being a thinker rather than a feeler, that was the argument I needed to convince me of what many people already accept: focus on the positive.

If I’m looking for a sentimental experience, I don’t generally go to Chuck E. Cheese’s to see their life-size puppets provide musical entertainment. On this particular visit, however, the sixfoot bear with her cheerleader outfit, pom-poms, and ponytails left me discreetly dabbing at my eyes. When this mechanical lead vocalist introduced her next selection as a tribute to all the mothers out there, all the unsung heroes of the world, I smiled and continued eating my pizza. However, when I tuned the bruin back in, she was singing, “You’ll never know that you’re my hero….” As I listened to the song, I realized that no, my mother never will realize that she’s my hero.

It’s a rabbit. Well, a bunny really. Two long ears, two eyes, a small round head, the barest hint of a body. Sure, the right ear is pinkish-purple and the left is purplish-blue, both shaped a little like butterfly wings, and the head is sea-foam green, that old Crayola color. The eyes have a spiral to them that few rabbits’ eyes do. But it’s still a bunny, more real to me than that velveteen one people are always going on about.

He painted it because he was copying me.

I was 16 and sitting in the backseat of a Buick LeSabre, my right hand pressed into Mike’s left. Mike’s grandfather, Scottie, and 11-year old brother, Nate, claimed the front seat.

Scottie piloted the car, catapulting it and us down the flat, hot roads in southern Illinois. We posed for pictures in front of a giant Superman statue, ate ice cream, and then got back in the car. Scottie turned us around in the parking lot of a quilt shop, and we flew back down the road towards his and Evelyn’s pintsized rancher.