A Group Effort at Defining Happiness

Sometimes it takes a group effort to define something as elusive as happiness…  We cannot define it in a vacuum.

When I worked with the Storytellers at the Anchorage of Bensenville Nursing Home, we connected with each other through group poetry.  We threw out words together to make this definition of happiness.

What is your definition of happiness?

Happy

Happy looks like a beautiful pink rose.
It smells like fresh laundry hanging in the sun.
It sounds like children laughing,
It tastes like a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day.
Happy feels like a baby’s soft skin.

Happy looks like pictures of people you love.
It smells like Johnson baby powder.
It sounds like church choirs and operetta duets.
It tastes like a big, juicy steak.
Happy feels like a smile on your face.
– The Storytellers

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Appreciating Connection

The moments we feel connected to someone or something may be fleeting.  Yet, they provide meaning to our lives.

This image is something I always come back to when I think of these fleeting connections.

Photograph by Kimberly Gotches, 2014

Appreciation

Walking along the river,
I see my first ice flower.
It could melt at any moment,
yet it hangs on –

Hovering over the water from which it came
and to which it will go.

It glistens,
like crystal,
its stem both flexible
and strong.

It is something beautiful,
existing in-between.
Something we won’t notice
if we just wait for spring.

I won’t forget this flower.

I want this flower to know:

“I appreciate you.”

– by Kimberly Gotches