of highs ...

Mar 21, 2008 - 02:29 AM PST

It's Friday morning. Good Friday, for Catholics. I was baptized a Catholic and went to a Catholic school. Most of my family are eager, practising Catholics. I wouldn't put myself in that specific category - not because I'm ashamed of it, but because I'm not really practising. I go to mass occasionally. I believe in God, but have some doubts about the Church. Being a Catholic, I shouldn't think that, let alone say it, but there you are.
So, back to this morning. Good Friday is one of the saddest, most depressing feasts (if that isn't an oxymoron what is hehe) of the Catholic religion. Celebrating Jesus's death (and resurrection, on Sunday). Here in Malta, at 10am, the sun is shining brightly, and the chirping of birds flows in through the open window. It doesn't feel like Good Friday, and it certainly doesn't feel sad. It happens to be the first day of spring, and spring loves Malta just as much as Malta loves spring.
In spring, Malta is the place to be. Nature flourishes, the whole country becomes so much more beautiful. Today, I'm not teaching, I'm not working, I'm not even going to study. I have time, something I haven't had in ages. Anyone who's been reading my blogs will know what a boring, all-consuming life I've been leading.
But today, I feel good. I want to smile, scream, yell, dance, hug everyone I see. It's spring, I'm off. This is what you live for - moments like these, when you look in the mirror and see the smile instead of the paleness! When you look outside and wish your eyes were as blue as the sky. When everything, no matter how hopeless or impossible, seems possible.

Today, apart from being happy, I'm also tranquil, and there is an ocean of difference between the two feelings. Nobody can be happy all the time, granted. Nobody can be at peace all the time. But it used to bother me very much that I would be, and other people wouldn't.
Today, selfishly perhaps, but rightly so, I don't want to feel guilty for being happy. It's the best feeling in the world. I want to be happy, I want to enjoy it, because happiness doesn't usually last very long.
When I'm feeling this way - high on air - I think of a 60 year old friend of mine, a very beautiful, eccentric person. She gets highs and lows. Really great highs and really bad lows. Well, I do, too, as a rule, with probably as much intensity, but she's 60 and gotten used to them by now.
When I am, she says to me, meaning high, I always fall off. Beware.

And she's right, of course. So, so right. But when you're up here, feeling the softness of the clouds against your cheeks, looking down on a seemingly-perfect world below, what do you care of the fall??