The most valuable piece of paper in our home right now is a yellow piece of construction paper we taped up beside the mirror in our bathroom. My young daughters and I made it together, and on it we drew the days of the week. For each day we created a fun activity that our girls love. Tuesday is a dance party, Wednesday is wrestle night, Thursday is long snuggles before bed, and Friday is a movie night. There, in simple crayon, is a plan for fun, a plan to create a bit of felicity in our home.
Felicity means happiness or contentment. Our neighbours named their daughter Felicity, and it suits her. She is a picture of happiness and the kind of freedom-loving fun we long for. Felicity is something we enjoy and hope for in this life, but it takes a special kind of posture to discover it all around us. Felicity is something we can decide to create and plan for, like we did with our little construction paper schedule. Felicity is something we can embody, as we relate to those around us. We can step into a moment to complain or accuse, or we can discover felicity and celebrate it. Our light-hearted posture can turn anything and any moment into a memory to be enjoyed, or lost.
Author Marlyn McEntyre says, “felicity includes something beyond simple contentment. Felicity…deepens by having reflected enough on one’s own good to realize that one’s own good consists in appreciation and service of others.” Felicity, she says, is rooted in other people.
In this challenging season where the pandemic has worn many of us thin and has robbed us of the usual joyful experiences we typically embrace, we are learning new ways to find our happiness. While felicity still comes to us on long walks, in finding small treasures, or pursuing our passions, we have also felt the sting of loss as we cannot see those we love, travel, sit close with a friend, or celebrate special moments.
We are, in a sense, learning together new ways of nurturing felicity in our lives. McEntyre says that felicity requires a kind of wisdom if it is to be found. The ready sources of felicity we once enjoyed are far off. We are learning a new language for finding fun and happiness, and for many we are discovering that our contentment and joy is found in between us and those we love. Felicity, for us, may be found in community, family, and friendships. Our proximity to others, those in our homes, but also those across the street, may be the very place where we find felicity again.
What would it look like for you to creatively reach out and connect with your neighbours, even on the coldest day? What if you reached out because wisdom tells us that here, in between you and them, could be a moment of joy, silliness, and laughter. What if a unique gesture of generosity, kindness, and care became a new way for you to discover felicity?
We are in one of the hardest seasons of the year, in one of the hardest years we have had to endure. The fun you once had may not be found in the places you used to look, but it may very well be that right across the street, or next door, is the very place where your felicity begins.
The other day our neighbour, Derek, threw a snow ball at my girls. They could not have been happier to return the favour. It was a true moment of bliss for them.
At the risk of having a good time, and in the words of Fran Lebowitz, “Any fun you can have, friend, go ahead.”
