Here's what i was thinking last night.
Remember that song - "When you're happy and you know it - Clap your hands."
You, like me, have probably known that song all your life... and yet for me - only last night did it really fall in to place.

The key is not the 'being happy' part or what to do when you get there...
its the "KNOWING" part that makes all the difference.

Finding something joyful and happy in retrospect is the easiest thing in the world. That's what nostaligia is all about, the imagination that you were happy in the past...
The appreciation that Now is good and Knowing that you are happy in this now will make all the difference.

Valentine for Ernest Mann

You can't order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

-- Naomi Shihib Nye