What Happiness Is

The sun is barely beginning to set as I head out the door. The sound of the traffic on the Hollywood freeway that's adjacent to my apartment building fills the air and calms me until I forget its there and ignore it altogether - the thoughts that fill my head winning the fight over my attention, as they so often do. I'm on foot this evening, my destination being the market one block right and two blocks left from my building, and I walk with a spring in my step, too happy to muster any kind of derogatory remark at the man who whistles crudely at me as I pass his open car window.

The neighborhood market, where I've become a regular and recognized face since moving into the area almost ten months ago, just adds to the overwhelming feeling of happiness I have about my apartment. The apartment itself, the building, the neighborhood, the stray cats outside my window, this market - it's as though, unbeknownst-to-me, I'm the star of a sitcom in which the set was built specifically to extract the highest level of pleasure out of me. It works.

The market, an aging knock-off of what was once a more respectable grocery chain, is slightly run down and it's more than unlikely you'll be able to find the name brands you've become so familiar with in the pristine Super Markets in better neighborhoods. But what it lacks in up-to-date fixtures and corporate brand names, it more than makes up for in the isles upon isles of cultural oddities in flavors and varieties which my suburban-raised mind delights in.

The produce section never fails to excite me, and I often find my basket spilling over with an abundance of fruits and vegetables that would make my mother, with her constant "eat healthy" nag, beam. Huge cartons filled with blueberries and the most delicious cherries I've ever tasted. My very first homemade tomatillo sauce was a direct result of a purchase from this store. I have wild plans to someday put to good use those nopales and prickly pears that I eye on my way to the more familiar fruits and veggies, but for now I stick with yams and bananas and giant apples and whatever is on sale that week. The prices, as I'm sure I don't even need to tell you, are beyond reasonable.

Making my way home - the sun now getting closer to setting and a chill starting to spread - I grasp my grocery bags in my hands and lug it all home. No doubt I've forgotten I was walking while in the store, and am grunting under the weight of impulse buys such as bottles of Mexican Coca Cola and yummy Polish beers. The baguette, which is a regular purchase as it's one of the yummiest store-bought of it's kind I've ever tasted, is still warm and I clutch it in the crook of my elbow, both because it's the only available place to carry anything, and because it keeps me warm.

I'm a sentimental bastard, so I wallow in the knowledge that this small act - my bi weekly solo trips to the market for groceries - is one of the memories I will treasure once I am older, perhaps no longer single and instead share these trips with someone who carries those bags of impulse buys in one hand, and my warm hand in his free hand, perhaps with a job that demands more of my time and energy. I bask and breaststroke through the happiness of this feeling - this amazing feeling of independence coupled with an excitement of what my future will hold, and I head to my cozy little apartment, with its warm lighting and darling Siamese cat, and I'm happy. Purely, truly happy.

Aside - I just wanted to thank all of you who have ever commented here or emailed me. It means more to me than I could ever tell you. Now tell me, what makes you truly happy?