Happy post

the other day my friend K. asked me perhaps one of the most profound questions i can remember ever being asked.

she said, "Lou. Last night as i was falling asleep i found myself wondering something about you.

i thought about how intensely you feel anger.
about how intensely you feel empathy.
about how intensely you feel sadness.
but, do you ever feel happiness intensely?"

her question threw me. i was frozen. i could think of nothing that matches my rage or sadness or empathy. then i remembered. YES. YES.

i am intensely happy when i am at a concert hearing live music that i love. that is the most INTENSELY happy that i get. and it is HUGE.

is that a sad thing? should i feel it more?

my shrink said there are other layers like joy and love...and i told him, yeah, well, but that's not INTENSELY.

oh wait...i loved my grandparents intensely. i love my mom intensely. when i look at my nephew i love him intensely. when guy and i are in our groove i love him intensely. i think of our wedding day and how intensely i loved him that day and it's almost too much. just like the others...

"Intensely."

to me it's when atoms smash together and create an explosion that is so huge nothing else exists in that moment. so huge that it's not even a thought, because it's bigger than your brain.

this is how i feel empathy
and anger
and sadness most of the time.

and happiness sometimes.

you?


(picture above is taken by my friend KD at the butthole surfers show i missed while in mexico. it is a picture of how my brain feels when i'm intensely happy, of a band that while playing live makes me intensely happy.)