Snowflake Challenge Day 1: Happy Place

[scrubjayspeaks]

Day 1

In your own space, talk about your Happy Place—the things that give you joy, calms you or keeps you sane. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


If we're talking about physical spaces, it's my backyard. It's got two sections: the dog park and the orchard. The dog park has largely been taken over by the duck run. I keep a reclining chair out there in good weather, and I like to sit and read. It's got the best view of the sky, so I hang out there for stargazing. The orchard (and vegetable garden) has a swing to sit in instead, and it is, ironically, my dog's preferred place to run around. I try to remember to go out to the yards when I'm sad, because it always makes me feel better. Sunlight and breeze and growing things, happy animals and books.

For metaphorical happy places, I guess it would be...designing. Which is a very vague word, but I can't figure out how else to express what I mean. I like the organizational stages of writing a lot. I like to plan out patterns for crocheting (though my skill at this is...debatable). I like to organize spaces in a way that optimizes their layout for their intended purpose. I like to make things make sense, I suppose. And that goes into a lot of the things that I enjoy doing or the aspects of things that I find most rewarding.

It's something that I've never entirely known how to make use of, beyond planning out my own projects and spaces. It seems like the sort of skill that would be in demand? In any case. I love the feeling that comes when I have correctly sorted things and laid them out, literally or figuratively, in a way that makes best use of them.

(Y'all should see the note cards I make when planning long stories to track themes and character arcs. I love me a repeating pattern!)

This--fostering happiness--is actually something that I am working on currently: identifying real sources of calm and renewal and happiness, as opposed to sources of...numbness. As much as I like cooking, frex, most cooking videos are "switch off the brain because it is doing a bad" items. Which has its value, granted, but. Sometimes it's hard to tell what is genuinely joyful and what is merely an analgesic.

Comments

[coyoteclaw11]

Ahh repeating patterns are the best. My absolutely fav story setup is the circular narrative where the ending is really just the beginning redone like,,, oof,,,, OOF that kills me???? Esp like when a character says the same thing they said at the beginning but now everything's different and it holds so much meaning and it's??? it's good.

I feel like one of the ways to become happier is to identify what makes you happy so you can do it on purpose. Best of luck in doing so!!