I ran into a friend on the street today and he clasped my hands and said “Jon, I’m so sorry you’re having a rough time. I know you had Open Heart Surgery, you must be up to your ears in recovery and medicine, we’re all getting older, I know you are struggling with the expense of owning the first Bedlam Farm, I read that you have left your publisher and had your book abandoned, this much be such a tough time for you..”

I was surprised by this, and I put my arm on my friend’s shoulder and said, really without thinking, ‘thank you for your concern, but you should know that this is the happiest time of my life, I have never been happier or more content.” He did not know what to say, he simply stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, and then I said goodbye, shook his hand and moved on.

I spoke the truth. All of the things he said about my life were true, this has been a season of struggles, they are not over yet, more i am sure, are to come. How, I wondered to myself, could so many difficult things be going on in my life, yet I have never been happier, or closer to being this happy, not in one day of my sixth decades of life.

How, I wondered could this be possible, being so happy in the face of so many things other people perceive as being misery and bad fortune? My friend Scott says it is love, “you and Maria love one another so much, it is such a beautiful thing, that’s why you are happy.”

That is also true, but I think there are other reasons as well. I have done long and hard work on my fear, lack of perspective, anger and impulsiveness, my obliviousness to the nature of my own life. I have been in therapy of one kind or another for half of my life, was a Valium addict for 30 years. If nothing else, you learn some things about yourself in therapy and a few things about other people. It took me a very long time to understand myself and to change myself. I hurt myself and many other people along the way. I resolved to change, and I have changed and am changing still.

I had a lot of money for much of my life, I was not happy. I had never set foot in a hospital as a patient until July 1 of this year, I was not happy during that time. I live in a smaller and different place than Bedlam Farm, I am happier than I ever was there. The meaning of happiness varies from person to person. I am coming to mine.

I feel I am following in Joseph Campbell’s notion of aging, I am trying to give something back to the world, trying to share what I have learned with people who wish to hear it.

Happiness is not a card from the stationary store, it is not another spiritual cliche,  like anything else of value in life, it is hard work. My photography has opened a window on my soul, I resolved to do work that I love, and do it every day, and I love writing as much as breathing. Maria and I share a creative life together, we accept and support one another, it is not a surprise to me to learn she has come out of the woods and kissed a tree. Tonight, while I cook, she will be sketching the tree. Dinner will wait, she has sat on many a meal while I rushed outside with the camera to get a photo of a cat on a hay bale.

I believe I am finding connection in life, something essential to being human and feeling human. I don’t need cable news to make me angry and intolerant and I don’t write cruel or angry messages to people on Facebook or anywhere else. Like Grandma Moses said, life is what you make of it. Every day. Connection is the universal human aspiration.

My friend was right in a way,  life is full of challenge, some of it painful and difficult. Crisis and mystery are around every corner. I do not have a perfect life, there is no such thing. Contentment comes from living well in the face of difficulty, not hiding from it or avoiding it.

I didn’t quite realize how happy I am – I don’t often think of that word –  until my friend came up to me on the street, filled with pity and sympathy I do not want or seek, and I thank him for sparking that realization in me, even as he quickly made assumptions about my life that most people would probably agree with. I don’t think my life is for most people, and that is fine. We all have to walk our own path. I am grateful to have chosen lover over safety and security, glad I kept with work that I love, appreciative that I am not swimming in the electronic streams of anger and division that are ruining the spirits of so many people, and harming our wonderful country.

I can’t make anyone else happy, and I can’t be happy for anyone else. Every day of my life, I give thanks for the happiness I have. I have never been happier.