Happiness cultivates a purity that elevates it past other emotions. Often happiness stands alone; it doesn't rely on other events or people. When you run into a chipper person, they're separate from their surroundings, like an orb of light floating in a grey world. Sometimes you wonder if they even belong. Happiness is inherently transcendent, and noticeable.
Part 1 of this series will attempt to magnify snapshots which caught happiness: precious moments that shouldn't be forgotten. Searching for happiness has its benefits. For one, once you find it, you've found it. You know where to go! And eventually, you'll realize happiness starts in moments and ends in lifetimes.
Happiness is a pleasant surprise. These pictures encapsulate joyful bursts. To the left is an extra photo taken between poses. Sonya moved to Jerome from Utah State before her mission and we grew to be friends. She was struggling in the dead space of a relationship's end and a mission's beginning when my good friend Benny, his girlfriend and I grabbed her and escaped to Sun Valley. We were taking pictures in front of a lovely resort, and I was being my usual self: silly, clever, dumb. I made a stupid joke and she laughed, which made me laugh. And now I can share this simple laughter between us forever. I guess she needed it.
My sister Callie and her husband Spencer and their celebrity-status dog Mosby visited me sometime in March. On our way to dinner we realized that we had no place to keep the dog in the meantime. Well, there's only two front seats, and I wasn't getting shotgun. Driving through Provo with a giant poodle trying to cuddle with you is absurd. It's also hilarious. My sister turned around and saved this ridiculous memory, and it makes me smile every time I see it. These little moments make for all kinds of joy.
TWO NORDQUISTS AND ONE VINCENT
Happiness is a finish line. There are few photos which capture bliss as well as this one. Erik and Nathan Nordquist flank me after the Redfish Lake Fun Run. The two brothers were my first friends in Idaho, and 11 years later it's stilling running strong. This occurred only weeks before I became a missionary, and it would be my last moment with them for a while. Countless hours of backyard football, Lego-building, speech-writing, cross-country practice, Calculus studying, culminated right here. What could be happier?
I was talking to my dear friend Ashley after she finished her final ballroom performance Saturday night. Having done my fair share of musicals and plays, I know what the feeling is after a good show's closing night: a sort of electric serenity hard to define. So I asked her "how do you feel now that it's over?" "I'm happy." "Happy that it's over?" "Happy that it happened."
And happiness is that it happened.
BASEBALL
Happiness is baseball. Next to God and my mother's cookies, baseball has been at my core. The shoe tip pressing on a base, flying down the pitcher's mound, hearing the mitt snag a pop-up, quirky dugout conversations, it's my heart and soul.
Amidst collegiate chaos, my good friend and I went to a BYU baseball game. It was heaven on earth. Life was good already, but this--seats behind home dugout, eating a two-foot long doughnut, on a bright spring day? Bliss.
"Happiness is anyone and anything at all that's loved by you."
- Charlie Brown
"Happiness is anyone and anything at all that's loved by you."
- Charlie Brown
