Hibernating in a California Winter + Some Thoughts on Happiness

We have nothing to complain about here in Southern California, with sunny days that have just the barest hint of coolness...it's a beautiful life. I was just commenting to someone yesterday that in my travels thus far, I have not found a a substitute for SoCal.

What makes it doubly (and infinitely!) nicer is that Kevin and I have just moved in to our own apartment home. We were previously living in a house with two other guys...literally, my life was like that series "New Girl":

I am a theatre director/elementary school teacher (candidate) who wears Anthropologie clothes almost obsessively (hey, a girl has to know her style...and rock it!) and has a tendency to burst into random song. I've never seen the show, but from what I have heard and read, that's Zooey Deschanel's character. Maybe I should watch it sometime to see how she likes living my life...

In my pantry-turned-office at Planet Hulk.
Kevin put it together so I would have an allergen-free place of my very own.

Kevin is a theatre director and theatre professor, and our other two roomies (who I'll call Bob and Bill) were a lighting designer and a director of photography for film. A very talented house, but where's my sit-com? It must be in development hell...

Bob liked his lady friends and we joked about the "train" that ran through the house we lovingly called "Planet Hulk" (in reference to the terrible tempers of the household). Bill lived in the garage with his admirable movie collection; I always referred to him as "Bill-who-lives-in-the-garage", hyphens audibly included.

We also had Max the cat, Dodger the dog, and Jojo the chinchilla to round out our happy family. Mind you, this was a two-bedroom, two-bath deal...and old to boot. We had our own monster living under the house, who shrieked and groaned in the pipes any time SoCal weather hinted at coolness; doors had an awful habit of coming off of their hinges so we had several curtains as substitutes. We roasted in summer and froze in the winter. We were all terrified of running the ancient heater; what if the monster under the house rebelled and lit the place on fire? We had no idea what the old heater might do, so we all just used an extra blanket, or wore a sweater.

I finished my first placement of student teaching on December 14 and around that time, Bob and Bill moved out of Planet Hulk and the Shire (the garage). Kevin was wrapping up his teaching semester and I was wrapping up my learning semester. We got packed, painted the place, patched holes, cleaned...and moved out of the Planet and into what we now call "Casa di Slay" three days before Christmas. What a whirlwind. There was nothing for it; I don't recommend moving during the holidays but if that's the only time you have, then you make do. Kevin and I by that time were both on holiday break, so there would be no missed classes or missed work...miraculously, I got the moving days off of work from both The Playground and Anthropologie and with the help of excellent friends, we got moved out of the house and into the apartment. It was not a hard move, but we've got a lot of stuff. Kevin is nine years older than me, so he's had that much more time to amass more furniture. Me? I don't have furniture outside of a desk, a dresser, and a bed. The rest of my possessions are my library, my clothes, and my craft supplies. That doesn't sound like much, but when thrown into bags and boxes and you're only moving a couple of blocks and you think, "I don't really need to pack that up tight"--well, things can get a little messy.

On the 23rd, I was determined to at least put our combined libraries in order. I'm really proud of my work and I think, justifiably so. The library starts with all of our directing and script analysis books, transitions into stage management and design; acting and voice texts; one act plays and technical handbooks/textbooks; children's theatre; and then I made a shelf of any play that has a work it was derived from, for example, the play of To Kill a Mockingbird is paired with the book To Kill a Mockingbird. After that shelf, I alphabetized plays by playwright, and then had a shelf of stand-alone plays. I organized a non-fiction section and then transitioned into fiction.

It took nearly five hours, but I'm proud of it. I couldn't fit any of our Shakespeare texts so I started a completely different shelf, which is the A-frame to the very left.

I've been pinning on Pinterest, observing displays at Anthropologie, buying design books, crocheting and crafting...I want to create a "beautiful life" a la A Beautiful Mess or Lovely Undergrad but it is definitely a work-in-progress, rather like life itself. Kevin and I are so blessed that we are able to turn to each other and smile contentedly and say, "It's a great life, isn't it?"

We all have times where that is the one thing we wish we could say but we just can't. It's hard to be content, especially in our society where we are encouraged to be bigger, better, bolder. Have this car, live on this side of the hill, go to that school. It's one thing to be happy; to be content is a stronger choice.

Again, not having watched the show but knowing this, Jess in "New Girl" moves into the apartment, recovering from a bad break-up. I was in a terrible place personally when Kevin and I first started dating; I even warned him that my bags were quite full and I wasn't wanting to burden anyone until I could heal and recover. He just smiled and told me he was going to help me carry them...it wasn't an offer.

I finally discovered true love and happiness and glimmers of contentment then. I know it's cliched, and age-worn...but nonetheless true. Where there is a true meeting of mind, heart, and spirit...a beautiful life can happen.

I was intrigued by the idea of happiness and wanted to know more about it. Sure, I'd been a happy kid and a happy teen, but I did not know what it was to be a happy adult. I knew how to be a working and educated adult, I knew how to be pleasant and cheerful, but I was discontent at heart and couldn't quite grasp at this thing people kept calling 'happiness.'

I think Dodger knows what happiness is!

Whenever I'm intrigued by something, I read. I picked up several titles during this time, trying to understand this golden, sunshine-y, endless summer that had begun to reside in the very core of my being. What was happening to me?

I read Hector and the Search for Happiness, a Little Prince-meets-The Alchemist kind of sweet, lighthearted tale about Hector's search for happiness all over the world; I read Gretchen Rubin's ubiquitous The Happiness Project and decided that while I wasn't crazy about the book, her ideas regarding choosing happiness in one's daily life really resonated with me. I read half of the other here-there-everywhere popular book, Eat, Pray, Love, which I enjoyed but just never finished.

Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman really spoke to me; this is one I highly recommend. She is a famous children's author who was living a very high Hollywood society lifestyle and was brave enough to say that she wasn't happy. Her husband and the people around her didn't really understand that, so she began to travel and surround herself with people who did. She still lives a nomadic lifestyle, with no permanent address. Having toured with a children's theatre for thirteen months, with a mixture of homestays and hotels, I could appreciate, on a very basic level, what that would mean. Another great read was Yoga B***h by Suzanne Morrison. Oh, this one was a hoot and a holler. She's in a loving relationship that she feels vaguely unsatisfied by, which is the sub-plot of the main story about pursuing a yoga lifestyle first in Seattle, then in India. I was rooting for her the entire time, hoping that she would make the choice I realized I had made.

The thing is, ladies, sometimes we get ourselves into long-term relationships that are nearly marriages and talk ourselves into being happy and satisfied when we know that we need to break free and make stronger choices for ourselves. Maybe this applies to you, maybe it doesn't. I'll save further elucidation on this topic for a future post, but I want to share a few things from my all-time favorite book, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

Annie and her husband Dr. Strong are many years apart in age but love each other tenderly. Through much exploitation, manipulation, etc., the Doctor is near-devastated because he has been manipulated into thinking his young wife is having an affair with her cousin Jack, who was her childhood sweetheart and much closer to her in age. Annie defends herself (admirably) and explains to her husband why she married the true love of her life versus a handsome, dissolute man of questionable character: "There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose."

This explanation and appeal to her husband has the novel's hero, David, leave the scene with the words echoing in his head: he realizes that the young, beautiful wife he married in the throes of first love and passion is unsuitable to both mind and purpose but he resolves never to reproach her for the mistake he has made in marrying her. It is only later, as she is dying, that she reveals that now she will never live long enough for him to despise her, as he surely would have as time tested their marriage.

One of my favorite authors, L.M. Montgomery, remarks in her personal diary that there was a young man that she was much taken with, but she could not see their happiness extending past the first year of marriage, so unsuited were they in both mind and purpose. Her story didn't end happily, sadly...more about that in future posts.

People ask the question, is love enough? It was a fan fiction, of all things, that told me no, love isn't enough: "when there is not the same understanding of that love and purpose" which is a near-paraphrase of Dickens' Annie Strong.

We must find those who suit us in mind and purpose and spirit, not just passion. For that is when we get ourselves in trouble. Austen's Lizzy knew that Wickham was the wrong choice for her, and look what narrow escape she made in Pride and Prejudice! It's a scary thing, that thing called happiness, and it requires courage to choose it...and build upon it.

Returning to this Blue Castle kind of life, a Valancy and Barney living cheerfully and contentedly surrounded by their menagerie, we actually have a heater (!) and a dishwasher (!!). We've enjoyed reading by our fireplace (!!!!!!) and simply living our quiet life together. I don't return to school until the end of the month and I feel like this is the most I've seen my husband since we've been married.

The Artful Dodger dog asleep by the fire.
I think the animals are enjoying the move just as much as we are!

After organizing the library, we repacked to visit his mom and family for the holidays and we've been in recovery mode from packing and traveling and moving ever since. He returned to rehearsals yesterday and I am beginning rehearsals for a children's school show this week. He's directing Born Yesterday and I am directing Schoolhouse Rock, Junior as well as prepping for three productions of Seussical the Musical. I will be youth directing one, directing one Junior version, and directing the third. I humbly praise God for all of this theatrical work! I also have several workshops spread over the spring and summer, in addition to going back to school, writing my Master's thesis and two more Teacher Performance Assessments. It will be a busy time, which is why I am so cherishing this quiet hibernation and prep time.

Have a beautiful day and a "great life"!

Best,
Lissa