Chandra Garsson
Ouroboros
Oil on canvas, 33 x 27 inches
Response
I Am Happy for Now
By J. Daniel Grant
Inspiration Piece
I told my roommate twice that I’m happy. Really happy. Like life had finally dealt me a hand I wasn’t embarrassed to lay down on the table. He looked at me and said, “I know. You told me that on Tuesday.” I’m afraid I had to say it out loud, in the company of someone who knows the implications of such a statement, in the company of someone who knows the intricacies of my daily brokenness and poor decisions, in order to give the words some meaning. Having someone hear your thoughts, whether they are lucid or ludicrous, adds a level of responsibility to the sounds. I am now required to ask what these feelings mean. So….reluctantly I ask, what do these feelings mean?
Here is where I begin. No matter what this means for me and my life, I know that today, just like Friday, when I left my office at 9:30 pm after arriving into my cubicle at 8:15 am with a full cup of coffee and a half-hearted energy for the responsibilities that awaited me, I hope to hold onto this feeling of happiness, of subtle yet loud contentment, laced with angst, just as I hope to hold onto the closing of this beautiful fall NYC Sunday. I barter with the sun, begging it to stay, but I know that it must leave. It has others to entertain in places like Bangkok and Nairobi, though I’m not convinced they deserve the light as much as I do. After a riveting yet inauspicious negotiation process, I oblige, not because I choose to, but because I’m forced to, and I shift my hope away from the sun, away from this ephemeral feeling of happiness, towards the producer of both objects, with the hope that tomorrow, and Tuesday, I will feel this way again. And if neither the sun nor the happiness returns to me, at least my eyes, my voice and my roommate will testify to what I once held as mine.
Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.