Aunt Gert snorted. “Who said anything about happiness? Don’t be a ninny. You are mistakenly equating bliss with happiness. They’re not the same thing.”
“They’re not?” I asked in bewilderment, wondering briefly if anyone in my life had ever called me a ninny before. “What’s the difference?”
“Happiness is fleeting, fickle, often based on our circumstances.” Aunt Gert waved a hand dismissively. “If you chase happiness, you will more often than not end up disappointed by the very nature of life. Life is hard, brutal at times, and often unfair. But following your bliss, that’s entirely different. It means facing your present reality with honesty and courage and, in the midst of it all, continuing to pursue each spark of joy, even if it is a tiny pinpoint in the darkness of your life. Do not give up. Continue to look for the light in your life—it is always present somewhere, some small thing to be grateful for, something to celebrate, a way to give joy to others, a new way to grow. Move toward the light in life; seek it out no matter what. This is the essence of what it means to follow your bliss. You must be honest. Pay attention. Seek joy.”
“ ‘Be honest. Pay attention. Seek joy,’ ” I repeated. “Is that Joseph Campbell too?”
“No, that’s Gertrude Lund.” She paused to let the self-reference sink in. “By the way, the toilet in the women’s washroom is clogged.” And she turned on her heel and marched out.
7
“Okay, so you’ve gota month to accomplish one goal on the list, right?” Eve, my best friend of more than a decade, handed a waiting customer two bars of her homemade orange blossom goat milk soap and tucked the payment into her metal cash box. It had been half a day since my very-early-morning conversation with Aunt Gert, and now I was perched on a stool under the awning of Eve’s stand at the Ballard Sunday Farmers Market, brainstorming ways to complete at least one thing on my life goals list.
“Right. One month. One goal.” I shivered and rubbed the arms of my cashmere, pearl-button cardigan. It was only early afternoon, but it felt like dusk, with dark gray clouds piling up in a threatening sky. Despite the looming gloom, the farmers market was doing a brisk business, and the street between the rows of stalls was bustling with shoppers.
“And if you don’t?” Eve asked.
“I will have failed at everything I wanted to accomplish in my life,” I said lightly, my tone belying the bleak truth of my words. In the cold light of day, the stakes felt even higher than when I’d made my vow in the kitchen in the early dark of the morning.
Eve raised her eyebrows at me. “Read the list again,” she commanded.
I drew my diary from the pocket of my vintage cherry-red poodle skirt and complied. Taking advantage of a momentary lull in customers, Eve leaned back against the table stacked with wares, listening intently. Today she was wearing a long, plain white apron, like a butcher’s apron, with jeans and a tank top that showed the arboreal tattoos snaking around her slender, toned right bicep. Even though it was drizzly and February, hovering somewhere in the low fifties, she seemed impervious to the cold.
With her pixie cut, shaved up the sides and dyed a cotton-candy-pink hue, she radiated a distinct wholesome back-to-nature aura combined with a razor-sharp punk edge. Indeed, she personified her entire brand of organic handmade goat milk products, Gritty Girl Soap Co. No one would guess that five years ago she’d been the youngest hotshot marketing executive at a high-powered New York City firm with the accompanying panic attacks and developing baby ulcer to prove it. We’d met during a junior year semester study abroad in England and bonded over trips to the British Museum, the Borough Market, and Notting Hill, two fresh-faced American girls with the world as our oyster. Life had turned out quite differently than what we’d imagined all those years ago in London, but we’d been best friends ever since.
“Get a horse. It’s the easiest thing on the list to accomplish,” Eve said when I finished reading. “You can keep it at my farm.” She dusted her hands, problem sorted.
“Yes, but unfortunately I don’t really want a horse anymore.” I’d actually crossed out number five in red pen. “And I think for it to really count, the goal has to be something I still want now.”
That left just four items. Three, actually.
Eve seemed to read my mind. “Number four?” she asked quietly.
“Is already impossible,” I responded quickly. My family would neverbe happy together 4 ever. That goal had slipped through my fingers ten years ago.
I worried my lower lip, ping-ponging between the remaining three in my mind. Which one had the best chance of success?
Eve crossed her arms and considered the remaining options. “Number one and number two are problematic. If you live in another country or own your own restaurant, you’re probably not going to be able to manage the Eatery at the same time. Are you willing to give that up?”
I paused, considering. “I don’t know how that would work,” I admitted finally. “Dad and Daphne can’t survive without me.”
Eve gave me a sideways look. I knew she disagreed with me on this point. On a lot of points, actually. She paused to offer a sample of basil cuticle balm to a woman pushing two Boston terriers in a doggy stroller. The woman took the sample, then moved across the street to the organic bakery stand to examine their sourdough boules.
“So that leaves”—Eve counted back on her fingers—“number three. Fall in love.”
“Yeah, fall in love,” I affirmed. It made me feel a little panicky just thinking about it, but I had to admit it was the most likely one on the list.
Eve snapped her fingers. “A Russian mail-order husband off the Internet,” she suggested. “I’m always getting spam ads promising that love is just a click away.” She grinned at me.
“I don’t think ordering a husband off the Internet actually qualifies as falling in love,” I protested, laughing. “Plus, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.”
She shrugged. “Technicalities.”
I gazed down the street of the Ballard Avenue Historic District at the couple of blocks of white awnings fluttering in the breeze. Unlike our local Magnolia Farmers Market, which ran only in the warmermonths, Ballard, the Seattle neighborhood to the north of us, ran their market all year round, and Eve was there each week manning her stand. Often I’d slip away from the diner for an hour or two on Sunday afternoons, ostensibly to help Eve handle the customers, but really I just hung around behind the counter and chatted with Eve.
Eve drummed her fingers on the table. “What about dating apps? I’ve heard Bumble’s not bad. Women get to make the first move.” She tilted her head and considered me thoughtfully.
“I think I’m just not cut out for online dating.” I shook my head, thinking back to my last venture with dating apps a couple of years before. It had been a wasteland of men trying too hard to impress me, of overpriced cocktails in swanky, hip bars in Capitol Hill. Walking into each bar and restaurant feeling awkward and uncomfortable in high heels, aware even before I sat down that it wasn’t going to work. Some of the men were full of themselves. Some were nice enough. None worked out. I gave up after six months and felt such a sense of relief when I deleted all the apps that I never tried again. “Maybe I’m just undatable.” I opened a sample tub of chapped-hand salve with calendula and rubbed a dollop into my palms.
