I’ve been trying something.

It’s an experiment with myself as the labratory…so obviously it’s a rather inconclusive, nebulous and a highly subjective experiment.

However, it must be said that I’m a rather willing victim, so at least I don’t have to round up control groups and those kind of things that can really drag a procedure out.

The experimental thing I’m doing is this;  I Smile Upon Waking.

The sad facts are that I don’t always remember to do this every single morning. But when I do, the deal goes like this. Before I even open my eyes, I smile. I smile for different reasons each time but the basics are something like this:

I smile that I’m alive.

I smile that I have a bed.

I smile that my husband is breathing beside me on said bed.

I smile that the ocean waves are still washing the shore and soothing my soul.

I smile, people, I smile. I try to feel that smile flood my heart and down into my belly and flow through to my toes and up through my mind and here’s what I can report with my unscientific-scientific study; I feel good. No, that’s not right. I feel great.

It shifts things immeasurably.  Then later in the day, when I start seeing things spiral into weird challenges, I bring back that feeling of the smile. I breathe into it and guess what? Better. Not perfect, but better and somehow more able to contend with what is.

I am working at accepting and allowing and being one with the ISness of existence.

Is it being Pollyanna-ish? West Coast Power of Nowish? Probably. But so what?

Isn’t every day truly a gift? Aren’t we lucky to be breathing and clothed and fed?

My study-of-one seems to have other adherents because yesterday, I, along with several of my friends, received this email from our lovely friend Karen Harmon. She entitled her email, A Poignant Day. This is, in part, what she wrote:

Yesterday, Paul and I went to a service for an old friend, a lost soul, a drug addict that committed suicide. It was held in a bar. No speeches were made. Much guilt, remorse and regret filled the corner of the bar where we mingled and tried to make sense. It was bleak and empty.

Two hours later, we attended a “21-year sobriety cake celebration” for a classmate and friend of Paul’s. The meeting was filled with hope, joy and gratitude.

We savoured the words and heartfelt emotion with every bite of the homemade vanilla cake. Even the powdered milk substitute in the strong, bitter coffee tasted good.

How sad, horrific and wonderful our lives can be. As we grow old together the poignant moments will increase, we will grow stronger and more capable of living each day to the fullest.

I’d like to suggest you might want to try your own experiment on the subject. I certainly don’t want you to take my word for it, but it might make you laugh to be lying in bed and grinning like an idiot. There are certainly worse ways to start the day, non?

That alone is worth the price of admission.