I am trying to figure out what was so different. They were big events, but we have a ton of big events in our lives. The happiest moment that I can remember was when my daughter Alice was born. It was a home birth in the boy's dorm at a Waldorf boarding school, High Mowing in New Hampshire. Alice was my third baby and she was more than 20 days overdue.I had tried everything to get the birth coming including riding at fast speeds over frost heaves on country roads with my friend Joanne in her old VW bug. Nothing, nothing, and nothing helped.
Laura Abbott had come to help me with the other kids and she had been with us for a good while. No action. Then, on Sunday afternoon I had gone to bed for a nap and slept until Tuesday morning. Thank you Laura and Patrick and whomever kept things going. Tuesday I awake feeling great. I ate like a pig. I visited with friends, I went to a movie in the evening and came home and the water broke.
Our house was an extension of the boy's dorm. Our room was the highest point, I think, on the hilltop that over the hills and mountains..The full moon illuminated our room. No lights necessary. The birth was remarkably easy and Alice was born asleep and stayed that way for hours and hours. I slept with her. When I awoke, our room was absolutely filled with spring flowers. All the boys in the dorm had brought offerings. It was April 14th and that year we went, with that full moon, from winter to summer.
I was happy. I mean, we are always happy when we give birth to a healthy child. But, as I am saying, that was a different level of happiness. Maybe it had to do with everything being in a perfect alignment for a moment in time.
My happiest day I can remember was in Cuba. I was living with friends in MA and awoke one day with this overwhelming urge to go to Cuba. This was a constant theme in my life, but that day was it. It was the middle of the summer, a time when I almost never went to the Caribbean. I called the travel agent (remember them?) and had her start finding tickets. I called my friend Randie who was in AZ, I think. I asked her to join me and she said "sure". We met in Texas a few days later and went to Cuba.
I hadn't known what was going on in Cuba because I hadn't planned anything, but we got there on the 30th anniversary of Che's death , when his remains were being brought to Cuba for burial. Holy Shit! Delegations from hundreds of countries were there for the festivities. It was hot, but there was a fantastic sea breeze in Havana. I read later that over a million people were there for the party. We started with a walk to the Plaza of the Revolution and then the endless speeches including a minor marathon by Fidel. We met great Cuban friends, were invited to a nearby house for lunch, went swimming off the rocky shore and then the party began. There were the best bands I have ever heard under the moonlight, next to the beach, and we danced with everybody from little kids to ancient ones, from countries we couldn't even find on the map...until I couldn't stand up another minute. I just remember being so very happy. It was a day when many people's dreams came true.
Lama Marut teaches that every second of our lives can be just exactly at the level of my high points. There is no time when everything isn't coming together in absolute perfection. 'Absolute perfection ', what a concept. There is no second where the stars aren't aligned perfectly. If we could grasp this, we would be in Nirvana. Meaning we already are except for our amnesia. It is for this reason that I periodically remember the best day and the best moment of my life so far.
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