Keep calm & carry on.
I spent most of July in Australia, embedded in the city of Melbourne. My daughter was starting her post-graduate degree and I tagged along to help her settle in (and to shed my increasingly stale daily routine). Unfortunately, it was mid-winter and the weather was a real piss ant.
Melbourne’s weather is notoriously fickle, it can change in the blink of an eye. They say you can go through three seasons in one day, which is absolutely true. Mostly, we planned our days accordingly, having the time to let the city unfold on its own terms. But after ten days of rainy, brisk weather, we decided to pull the trigger on some sightseeing. On the day we’d selected to take a 12 hour tour of the southern coast, the weather
went from somewhat accommodating to utterly miserable. Our mini-bus, filled with a global selection of tourists, went from a jolly group of trekkers to a posse of downtrodden, windswept, damp survivalists.
Don’t get me wrong, despite the weather, the coastline was utterly breathtaking – maybe even more dramatic due to the bluster. Even in the rain, seeing the shipwreck coast and twelve apostles was well worth the frigid three hour ride back to the city. Soaked through, the collective chattering of our teeth drowning out the musak, our poor driver contended with a perfect storm… a pitch black night, driving rain, a broken heating system, and a windshield that was fogging up at an alarming rate. His only recourse was to blast the air conditioning.
I haven’t been that bone chillingly cold in a long time. To make matters worse, my phone had no service, so digital distractions were out. My choices were; to cry, to scream, or to retreat inward. I chose the latter. In order to calm myself and warm myself from the inside out, I decided on a happiness challenge. What, I asked myself, were the top ten things in life that bring me the most joy? Remarkably, this list took me at least two of the three hours to complete. These are things I rarely take the time to contemplate. Of course, more than ten things popped into my mind, so I had to weigh each one carefully, whittling them down methodically. Here’s what I came up with, in no particular order.
An instant connection with a perfect stranger.
Swimming underwater in a fresh lake.
Flowers, the weirder the better.
A soft serve cone dipped in chocolate on a hot day.
Seeing a whale breach in the open ocean.
A spontaneous bear hug from my children.
Hiking to a waterfall.
Touching down in a new city.
Hot coffee in bed on a cold morning.
Reading an artistically crafted sentence.
Despite the misery, I steadied myself by thinking about the little things that have truly made me happy over the years; the things that will always bring me joy. It was mind candy for my soul and it got me through. We arrived safely, neither of us catching a deathly chill. Within minutes, we staked out a warm pub and our bodies thawed after a few sips of hot cider (spiked with a shot of fireball). We called it a day with a plate of fish and chips and a good laugh at our bum luck.