The title of this blog comes from a poem written by Jane Kenyon. I can’t recall when I first encountered the poem, but the first stanza often pulls me back to it –
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
from “Happiness”
In the time of this pandemic, when anxiety and despair may threaten to overtake us, we must be especially prepared to welcome happiness – however and whenever it arrives. Because it will come, I promise you!
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
from “Happiness”
And there’s no accounting for it.
No Accounting for Happiness 