Be Happy

Anna Lefler and I were having one of our freewheeling phone conversations when living emerged as the topic at hand. Lazy summers. Long meals. Deck sitting. Novel mapping. She wondered (out loud) if I'd ever read Barbara Holland's Endangered Pleasures. I confessed (a mumble) that I hadn't. Three days later (count 'em) Holland's book arrived at my door. I heard the box hit the stoop. I thought to myself, Oh no she didn't.

But she had.

Anna had also, this being an entirely separate matter and package altogether, sent along her Summer '09 hit parade CD (Anna knows music; Anna knows mood; I'm not giving away her medley secrets). So that there I was, trying to choose between sitting and reading, and standing and dancing, two things that cannot be done at once. I went for the dancing first (yes, I know you guessed that) and was joined for a spell by my son, who donned his shades and his best Hollister T for the invited-guests-only party.

(If I have not mentioned this before, our tiny house is surrounded by curtaining trees. What happens in this house stays in this house.)

In any case, I also made room for this lovely Endangered Pleasures, an older book with a timeless message. I leave you with this:

Indeed, pleasure may be almost as good for our health as broccoli; chemists tell us that happy people produce endorphins and enkephalins, brain chemicals that improve T-cell production and then enhance immunity to cancer, heart disease, and infections.

Let us then strive to be merry. Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending. Pleasure itself is endangered.

This late addition to the blog: I've posted over at HarperTeen on writing process. Pen or machine? I've lately gone retro.