The late-morning, low-hanging winter sun is streaming into my living room, and I am ensconced in my favourite chair savouring a third cup of fair trade coffee. Third cups are an indulgence reserved for days off! This day just beginning promises an oasis of relaxation, a grateful happiness – fleeting perhaps, but worth writing about for all that. Some treats in store for me – the library! Gifts from my brother, sister-in-law, kids, and kitties to open! Something special for dinner! Oh, and I am wearing my hair down, which is such a pleasure as it is rather tightly braided for work.

What I am most gratefully happy for is my family, who have come together in unexpected ways this past year. We live so far apart, but we have been able to enjoy each other’s wit and humour a few times this year, and make memorable stories. (Which are not for publication, most of them!) We are a memorable bunch.

Simple happiness is prosaic, is it not? At least in the telling – easier to write of the drama, and struggles, and large moments of life, or at least, thought by some to be more entertaining. My thoughts have wandered down this track since my pastimes over the holiday: first, to read again Tolkien’s “Lord Of The Rings” books, and then to watch the movie trilogy. I was saddened by some of the story changes in the movies, which perhaps reflects our cultural distrust of simple happiness. Or maybe, more accurately, our culture’s disdain of simple happiness when compared to ambition,  accomplishment, the accumulation of money and power…

This is not meant to be literary or film criticism, my imaginary friend, but rather my observations on the simple. Tolkien wrote marvellous and complex stories – which have their flaws – but I believe he celebrated the simple pleasures, simple happiness and contentment throughout his books in the evocation of the land of the Shire. The Shire is certainly emblematic of ordinary folk going about their ordinary business with contentment, and part of the over-riding theme of the books is this preservation of ordinary happiness. Of course, the movies are faced with the difficulty of compressing into a limited time space the events of the books – never the less, the movies certainly privilege the violent and horrific over the scenes and vignettes of the Shire and its people. I can’t say I enjoyed the movies much for this reason. In my readings of the books over the course of many years, always the Shire has been my beacon, my joy and delight, and my favourite place to come back to…

I do not think it makes for dramatic tellings or riveting stories, but I think my simple happiness and your simple happiness are the most important things in the world. Maybe, if we privileged and elevated the idea of simple happiness, more people would experience it, cultivate it, reverence it?

What do you think?