THANKSGIVING

Happiness Is Fleeting — and Powerful

And I’m giving thanks for that

Photo by the author.

It was summer 2014. I was taking a week-long embroidery class at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

During the day, I sat around a large table with my fellow students, each of us working on our own pieces while sharing stories of our lives. I probably used up a month’s worth of smiles and laughs in five days.

I grew up in the suburbs, and now live and work in a large metropolitan area, single, childless, and an apartment dweller. I’ve always been known as the “serious one.”

But that week I got to make jokes that people laughed at, and hear about lives very different from mine: women with kids struggling in school; women trying to make ends meet in small towns with few employers. Women older than me, facing physical challenges I now understand all too well. Women younger than me, on a journey of discovering who they are as adults.

Every evening, another group of folks convened on the screened-in porch of one of the dorms on campus — mostly woodworkers. Beer and wine flowed as freely as the bawdy jokes and stories.

I eagerly awaited the next year’s “art camp.” More camaraderie, more jokes, more wine. But there was no “stitch and bitch” circle to join. The…