Walkabout

When I lived in Melbourne, white people used the term "walkabout" quite frequently. For example, when I phoned my friend, Jean, her husband, Piet, answered and said, "She's gone walkabout." All he meant was that she was away on some unspecified errand, and he didn't know exactly when to expect her back.

But, while I was in Australia , I learned that Aboriginal people attached a more significant meaning to "walkabout." To them, dropping everything and "going walkabout" meant answering a call to go on a spiritual quest.

I don't know exactly what Aboriginal people do when they go walkabout. I gather they go into the bush for a while, re-establish their connection with nature, and feel spiritually replenished. I dare say the experience is unique to each person who undertakes it.

Today it occurred to me that the ultimate joy would be to feel as if I had gone walkabout (in the Aboriginal sense of the word), but without having to leave home to access that experience.

Then I reflected on the life that I had created in Nanaimo, with people in and out of my cohousing community, and realized that that was exactly what I had accomplished!

Oh ....... my ....... goodness .......

Could you bear to be happy?

Ever since I moved to Nanaimo, British Columbia in the middle of September 2008, I have been happy -- delectably, deliciously, deliriously happy.

Sure, I've had the occasional test, like the time my vehicle got stuck in the snow on a country road. But even those challenges have turned into blessings. They have brought me into contact with kind people, angels in disguise, whom I otherwise would not have met.

When I first got here, I thought I was going through a honeymoon phase and that it might wear off. Now admittedly, it's still relatively early days for me in Nanaimo. But it is coming up for four months, and -- if anything -- I'm feeling even happier than I did when I arrived.

Some days -- and this has been one of them -- my joy has been so intense that I have found it almost unbearable. I am not accustomed to serving as the container for so much delight.

This has caused me to reflect on my past, when I rarely was as ecstatic as I am now. If sustained happiness could have been handed to me on a platter back then, would I have been receptive to it? Maybe, but then again maybe not.

You may be puzzled by my assertion that I previously could not have tolerated being too happy for too long and the implied extrapolation that many people are the same way. You may be thinking, "Of course I want to be happy. Who wouldn't?"

But just stop and think about it. Could you stand to live in a state of bliss for four months? Never mind that. Could you stand it for four days?

Based on my past performance, I would say I would not have been able to take it. I suspect I was too attached to sadness and fear. They were familiar. I was comfortable being uncomfortable, paradoxical as that may sound.

Having very few breaks from my current state of cheer has been a stretching exercise for me. But, wow, it feels to me like a nice challenge to have.