in baker, nevada, joel brought up a conversation about the difference between happiness and contentment.
in my mind, happiness is a teammate’s laugh or a perfect lavender iced coffee or a song that speaks to your soul blasting maybe-too-loud through headphones. a beautiful utah sun slipping behind mountaintops, instantaneous.
contentment may contain all of these moments. at some point the emotional highs and lows blend together into a state of peace - one where spilling a bit of iced coffee won’t ruin your day because you know better things are coming. i, personally, would prefer this type of stability to the volatility of instantaneous (un)happiness.
today we are, for the first time since…sacramento? in proper proximity to urban life, just north of the well-known college town of provo, utah in a suburb called lindon. suburbia, where matching white houses with gray roofs line gentle roads in a levittown-reminiscent fashion.
there’s something very melancholy about feeling happy amidst discontent.
today i was happy a lot of the time. honestly, today was the first time this trip that i’ve felt fully like a person. late nights, early mornings, sleeping bags, and 100-mile days do a number to your body and your psyche. we have two full rest days in lindon - our team slept in, i made oatmeal and lavender iced coffee and read outside in the shady sun and pet gemma, our wonderful hosts’ 19-year-old cat. I put on an outfit without a butt pad! I marveled at our hosts’ beautiful view and backyard treehouse. I went to target and trader joe’s with katherine and vincent, loaded up on delicious food, played (and won!) an intense game of air hockey with joel and practiced (laughable) head standing with katherine in the evening. ate pasta salad and ice cream outside and learned about our host’s profession as an organ player, called a few loved ones living far away from utah. watched timothy cook scallion pancakes in our basement kitchen (and maybe set off the smoke detector) and joel prep bread dough for tomorrow’s baking ventures.
so much happiness on this team. i’m truly so lucky.
but there’s a looming sense of anxiety when you go to the store and see no one who looks like you. eyes flitter and microaggressions roll easily off of tongues. we are currently in a state where university “honor codes” ban people like me from loving who they love. we have visited, and will continue to visit, places where the line between patriotism and american exceptionalism becomes thin. where reproductive healthcare is being actively dismantled as i write this post. where people are happy about these things.
I am constantly towing the line between immense gratitude - for this journey, for all of our incredibly generous hosts, for my teammates - and a deep sense of anger/ fear/ at times impact-lessness. perspectives and emotions come in waves.
I find it difficult to claim contentment in this country, in this moment. but on we go, finding safety, joy, happiness where we can - holding each other tight where we cannot.
aja