Not Knowing We Are Happy

"Sorry, I didn't mean to."

"I'll work up here. You work down there."

"We have to have water everywhere on the playground, right?"

"What are you doing?"

"I want to make the water stop."

"My turn. I want to have a turn."

"After me?"

"Yeah."

"Are you trying to make the water go or stop?"

"Guys! Come on!"

It's like a poem if you just let it be one, the conversations of children at play.

"Hurry, the bad guys are coming!"

"That's the wrong way."

"Hold on! I'll pull you up."

"Okay, I'll come with you."

"Why are we standing here? That's silly."

"It's silly standing everywhere!"

"Everything is silly, especially my dad."

"We need more leaves for our soup."

"It's not soup it's stew."

"Stupid soup!"

They sing it like a round almost, the way their sentences overlap one another, creating an ode to now, to being together right now.

"Let's get buckets."

"I want it when you're done."

"I'm done right now."

"Where are we going?"

"This looks super strong. Doesn't it look super strong?"

"I don't even know."

"Actually, I was going to clean the playhouse floor."

"We need more sand."

"I'll get it in my shovel."

"Over here! Over here!"

They are mostly happy as they play, but they, of course, don't know it because no one ever knows when they are happy until it's in the past. Adults stop too often to ask themselves, "Am I happy?" and when we do, even if we are, it goes away until the next time we are simply doing and not knowing we are happy.

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