I’m reading Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence a book I most highly recommend, though perhaps not as something to be taken on the plane as it is, on its own, the size of a small suitcase and most certainly does not fit into the pocket in front of your seat.
Anyway, this morning, I woke at 5.30 – not to run in a vertical marathon, but because my body is still on Australian time – and picked up my book. I was rewarded with this reference back to the book’s most excellent opening sentence:
In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant “now”, even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so
Which was astonishingly close to my experiences yesterday only in the complete reverse. I survived yesterday by recognising, at around 8.30 am, that this was it. Between now and the end of the year, this was as unhappy as I was likely to be. Tired, jetlagged, hot, helping children find their new classrooms and both of them separated from all of last year’s friends, no coffee in the cupboard at home. This was the worst it would get.
I think that is why, at the end of the day I sat on the lounge not happy, but not unhappy either.