Don't worry... I'm happy.

After a little reflection,

it has become crystal clear that it's time to confess, to clear the decks.
You probably guessed it, anyway.

Yes.
I am a maple walnut.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool, bona fide nut sapling, a nerd, a dweeb, a goofball. I certainly don't know what people-in-the-know call people like me these days, cause I'm so not in-the-know.

There, I said it.  I've been living a life rife with self-deception.  I've long believed I was hip and cool, edgy even, but first you have to acknowledge a problem in order solve it, right?  Self-deception contains the seeds of self-destruction, so here we are.

I'm trying to take the long view these days, to approach things philosophically, because a wise woman taught me that the best way to get anywhere is to think from the end.  The goal of all other goals is happiness, but we are each allowed to choose what happiness means to us.

First find your happy place, and all else will follow.
I've a simple mind, so simple things please me. Like riding a bike...

...or singing a happy song.

And there's the thing. When you've suffered a loss, even the loss of something as nebulous as a dream, a hope, an imagining, it's important to find your happy place.  I'm convinced that happiness comes from within because how I feel about something always depends upon what I think of it. And almost paradoxically, it's best to think and sort through things from a happy place, too, with a heart full of love.

Sometimes a happy place is simply anywhere your friends are...

But when it's a little harder to find that inner space of joy, when I just need a quick fix of happiness, I love to ride my bike and sing as fast and loudly as I dare.  It would never be an edgy and cool thing to do, even if I were a really good singer who knew a million cool songs. But it's not like that. I'm a very bad singer, and somehow I only know the words to the worst, most sentimental, super-sappy songs in the world. 

I am the very antithesis of hip.

Sigh.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, being a home grown maple walnut like this, but it doesn't slow me down.  These days you might find me cruising along singing this:

and rather predictably, this:

And I shudder to admit it, but yes, even...

A lesser maple sap woman might be humiliated by such a self-revelation, but not me.  I own it.  I like shiny things, and sparkly things, too, like a magpie.  I like pretty things, and happy things and I sing sappy songs to lift my spirits.  

And I'm not even a little tiny bit sorry, either.

Yes, of course it's quite possible I'm starkers.  I have asked that question of a few good therapists over the years, but none of them are willing to certify me.

At least not yet.

They might if they saw me at the end of the cat-walk the other day.  Lately I've noticed that people who walk dogs actually walk places with their dogs.  And also they tend to stay on terra firma.  Crazy sappy cat people, you know, the people who try to be responsible cat owners who don't allow their children's feline pets to decimate the local song-bird populations, the ones who take the cat out for a walk on a harness and leash? Yeah, those people. Sappy people.  They stand around a lot, watching bees and things.

Sometimes they might even find themselves in a tree, singing a sappy song while the neighbors walk by underneath with their dogs, obviously wondering if they ought to call someone about the singing nut-bar up there in the tree. 

Yep. By lifelong-standing tradition, the boy likes a story and a song at bedtime.  I wrote a little ditty for him when he was a baby, set to the tune of Bach's lullaby, but his all-time favourite bedtime song goes like this:

I had a Dream...

the world's turning.

I had a dream, 

the Earth's quaking,

and glass breaking.

It's shaking the foundations of society,

embracing our frustrations,

our insanity.

I have a Dream...

the world's turning.

I have a dream,

the Earth's healing,

and bells pealing,

changing the direction of humanity,

and turning our frustrations into sanity.

It's changing the directions of humanity 

and turning our frustration into sanity.

I have no idea why he loves that one best, of all the sappy songs I know, but it's hands-down his favourite song, and it has been since the first time he heard it a couple of years ago, bless him. I heard it twenty-five years ago on an album Long John Baldry contributed to in support of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and it just stuck.  No idea why.  I don't remember jokes,  I don't necessarily remember my own phone number, and half the time I don't even know what day it is, but somehow I always remember that song.

Why?

Because that's what sappy maple people do.

And do you know what walnuts do?

Yes, some of them sing sappy songs on cycles unfit for sandy beaches, but ALSO walnuts spend their time pondering silly things.  You might think that nuts can't think, but this isn't entirely true of the wild walnut.  Did you never wonder why walnuts look like brains? (Coincidentally, did you know walnuts are also good for your brain?) But beware. Don't confuse this ability to think with actual intelligence.  It's just an elaborate form of camouflage.  You know. Like a chameleon.

Walnuts think too much and maple walnuts think about silly, sappy things.  For example, last week when I tried that fixie bike, I was wearing my favourite skinny yoga-jeans.  And they are old and all stretched out, but I love them, anyway. They're soft and comfy and a lovely colour and everything.  And they used to look great on my ass, too. I love them and certainly don't want to let them go.

These days my favourite jeans make my ass look enormous.

Of course I didn't let that slow me down, I freely put the incriminating evidence out there for all to see.

And dearest anonymoose noticed:

Everyone noticed.  How could you not?

And it IS true I weigh ten pounds more than I did three months ago.  That's the last time I weighed myself before last week...

It's odd, because I am definitely smaller than I was a few weeks ago.  I know this because I didn't fit into this suit a few weeks ago, and now I do:

And really, who gives a flying fuck anyway?  It's not like it actually matters in the end. What matters is figuring out how I am going to find that Totalitarian Bike Lobby against which the Wall Street Journal is so ardently and courageously defending humanity. Haven`t you always wanted to be a lobbyist?

Soon as I find it, I'll let you know, and then we can all join the Totalitarian Bike Lobby.

Till then, I love that these legs haul this big ol' butt up hills and home again with a song in my heart.

 That makes me a happy maple walnut, and as sappy as it is, it will do for today.