Yesterday was filled with happiness.
I spent the day with friends, and with Olivia. We went to lunch together.
There was a strike—there often are in September here in France—so she didn’t have school. And just like that, an ordinary weekday became something special.
Somewhere, I once read that when we experience a happy moment, we should name it. We should say it out loud:
This is a happy moment.
Because the world around us holds so much sorrow.
It’s in the news, on our screens, in the stories we overhear. There is tragedy and heartbreak everywhere. And if you’re like me, it’s hard not to feel the weight of it.
So when joy appears, even in quiet or simple ways, we must notice it. We must let it in. We must say:
This matters. This is good. This is real.
It reminds me of a little practice I’ve taken up.
In our town, the bells ring every hour, every half hour, around the clock. And each time I hear them, I say to myself:
I am in the right place at the right moment.
A small way to ground myself in the present, to lessen the noise that can pull me away.
And yesterday, I heard the bells rang many times. I was out in the village, moving through the day with people I love. At one point, I tripped and fell, banging my wrist. I found some ice, sat down, and let the swelling bruise settle.
Olivia came to me.
She looked at my wrist, then into my eyes, searching for understanding—as children do. Her face showed surprise, concern, and a depth of empathy that caught me off guard. She caressed my wrist, held the ice with her hands, and gently said,
“It’s OK. You’re OK.”
And just like that, my eyes filled with tears.
There was something so pure in her comfort, something that felt unspoken yet deeply knowing. I’ve always believed compassion is something we learn—but in that moment, I wondered if perhaps it’s something we’re born with, and the whirl of world might teaches us to forget.
I try to be present to the gift of living.
To find goodness in the small things.
Still, I can’t ignore that these happy moments are not something everyone gets to feel—or to live.
That reality of privilege is hard to grasp.
Staying present—
to the beauty and the ache,
to the happy moments that ask nothing of us but to be awake.
These are the places where meaning hides,
where the soul can remember itself,
where grace arrives like light slipping through the cracks of an ordinary day.
Ah, to remember
To care more deeply,
to pay closer attention,
to be more human with one another.
Compassion-
“Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.”
Henry Ward Beecher
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