osculate

osculate verb kissMy son just recently learned how to kiss on demand. He opens his mouth wide and suctions it to your cheek with a loud "mmm---ahhh" sound when you ask him for a kiss. It is my favorite thing in the world. When I was kid I used to dread family occasions or holidays when people were over and I was forced to kiss or hug people. I remember I would run and hide when I heard the doorbell ring just to avoid it. I come from an Italian family so the formality of kissing friends and family is important and one is considered rude if you do not do so. I suppose the main reason I clam up is due to being shy - an attribute I truly believe I was born with.The world can be very cruel to people who are shy. It is not a trait that the majority of people find endearing. Shyness is often misunderstood and in our extroverted culture, not something that gets you very far. I have been shy since as far back as I can remember. You probably wouldn't tag me for this trait these days as I most often disguise this aspect of my personality.  There are still clues to it but I fear that most people mistake it for weirdness, snobbery, or pretension - which is most unfair.It seems most people stereotype shy people as being sweet and mouselike, hiding in corners, timid and shaking. But that is not the case at all. Shy people have opinions and passions just as strong as extroverts. Just ask someone who is shy and I am sure you will get an ear full - once they get to know you. I don't know if all shy people are this way, but I just enjoy observing and not participating. I'd rather take in everything and make a story about it than participate. I don't enjoy making the first move. I like to go slow and ease myself in when I think it's safe and when I'm ready. There's nothing wrong with this in my opinion. And shyness doesn't mean that one has to be a wallflower either. Shy people are like little secret packages waiting to be opened.I have always channeled my shyness through writing. The first time I did this was my senior year in high school where I wrote an article in the county paper about not going to the prom...and about how happy I was not to go. I received many cheers and jeers from it, but for once I had a voice and I didn't have to speak to put it out there - and people listened. In college, I wrote for the newspaper for 4 years in the commentary section, no less. Unfortunately, upon graduating in a bad economy, I wasn't able to work as a journalist as I had planned and gave up my voice for a long time...until most recently with this blog. My writing has become an extroversion where my everyday life is lacking.My shyness makes me fear being the center of everyone's attention, yet long for it with all of my being. I believe there are many people like me. Instead of overcoming or ridding our lives of this attribute, we find a different language - writing, dancing, singing - that releases our voice in a different way than just playing a role at a party and keeping up conversation.Shyness is at the core of creativity, grace, humility...all of those traits that people find lacking in society and that most people strive for. Perhaps they are so rare because most people misunderstand them as negative attributes...the way the world mistakes shyness for so many other unsavory things. 

sponsalia

sponsalia noun engagement or marriage When I was married, we had no money so I bought a dress on sale at David's Bridal for $500 - including all of the crap that goes with it - and my sister in law did my hair. I bought the minimal flowers - daisies - a few bouquets and boutoniers from a flower shop just because I liked it's name - "Consider the Lilies." I found a photographer who taught at RISD part time and hired him on the cheap along with disposable cameras on the tables. We chose a wonderful old gothic church that didn't need decoration and rented an old mansion called the Arcade in Roger Williams Park Zoo for the reception. When the rain poured down that day, we still had outdoor photos on the deck and micro brewed beer from Trinity Brewhouse, who catered for us. We hired our favorite live jazz band from the Custom House in Providence for music and everyone danced and even sang on stage. The day for us was a celebration of who we were together and all of the things we loved and shared in the place that we met and called home. It wasn't about looking like a model in my photos or 2 inch thick paper stock invitations embossed with our signature logo. We didn't prance through corn fields holding hands in the sun beams or stare into each others eyes under the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk for engagement photos either. We had no money so we had to be creative, and I am very happy for that..The marketing of marriage is constantly thrust upon me, whether it is in magazines or Facebook, and I find it truly hilarious. I especially love looking at the glamour shot engagement photos. Everyone has the same shot in Grand Central and Central Park - you know you've seen it too. I would think the last thing I would want is a photo that looks just like everyone else's - but alas, when I used to work at "the Blue Box" people traded bridal photographers like Garbage Pail Kids. I think it may be a status symbol here in the Big Apple, oddly enough.And the dresses. My office used to be across from the famous Amsale on 5th Avenue so many of the girls I worked with would purchase dresses there for their big day. My poor little Gloria Vanderbilt whose lace hem I thought was so pretty and understated looks like some sad schmata compared to the runway Moniques and Veras I have seen, but I loved it nonetheless. It's absurd that there are entire television programs devoted to wedding dresses - more than one! The Lifetime network probably has 3 alone. Women in New York also trample each other for off priced Vera Wangs on a certain day of the year. I've seen it on the evening news.If I could do it all again and if I actually had some cash this time, I wouldn't really change anything about our day. Maybe I would have nicer flowers or more champagne, but we created our own day and I haven't been to a wedding like it before or since. When I look at our photos I don't relish how perfect the lighting or staging is, I just marvel at how young and happy we looked. It's been almost ten years, 2 houses, 1 dog and a baby later. We have wrinkles, have lost some hair and gained a few pounds. So maybe I didn't look like the most awesome princess in the universe on my wedding day. I have never been one to want that in the first place. I can gladly say that as great as my wedding day was, my marriage has been far greater. I'd rather have incredible photos of each other from all of the places we have travelled then some schlocky picture post card I can send so people think I'm in love.

eudaemonism

eudaemonism n. a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood of actions producing happiness.I have always fought a losing battle with the concept of "happiness." I'd like to think that someday I will find the true, innate meaning of the word, but I doubt it. I read a fair amount and know that few people really find the core, "holy grail-like" meaning of happiness. That is why this word truly intrigued me. To have a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood that it will produce this enigma we call "happiness" is absurd - like the infinity symbol...some never-ending loop. Happiness doesn't seem to have just one definition. It means so many different things to so many people. To a starving child in the Sahara, happiness is endless clean, cool water and food as compared to someone diagnosed with a terminal illness where happiness might be a night without pain or 10 extra days of their life to be lived with their family. Donald Trump deems happiness a much different thing than I do...or does he? It would seem that as life gets increasingly happy, the bar rises - like an addiction, a drug that makes us believe that we deserve much more than we actually do - but is that the case? Is happiness much more simple than one would think? Maybe Donald Trump find his true happiness in a box of Malomars while I dream of a yacht sailing on the mediterranean.And then there is that lucky place in life where happiness becomes monotony. Where we reach a certain level of what we call "happiness" and expect that it will exponentially grow from that point. Somehow we begin to think that the world owes us the next level because we have earned a certain amount of points or reached a certain threshold, like a game. That is where things most often fall apart. This is the juncture of where happiness meets its counterpart - not sadness - but gratitude. Every truly happy person in life at some point must come to terms with gratitude. At the height of our life's bell curve where we have reached the highest arch of happiness and when the line gradually descends, gratitude begins - where some turning point make us turn away from the easy happiness we have and make us grateful for ever having experienced it at all. This is the point where people find their greatness, their groove, their reason to live. I fear that there are few of us who get to this point. I believe the majority of people either find stasis and accept their level of happiness or - worse - constantly strive to a higher, unattainable level - possibly leading to greed and arrogance.To follow the curve downward is much harder. Seemingly it leads to things like gratitude, humility and humbleness. I believe only the great can follow this path - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa. It's a completely selfless place - perhaps a power greater than ourselves - where we surrender things over and are happy just to experience life.Or maybe, happiness is inconceivably simple...like a surprise party or unexpected treat. No bell curves or expectations...just a feeling of joy that seems so rare in life because it is meant to be truly enjoyed and not dismissed like every other minute we live - like that little kid feeling you got running down the stairs to see what was under the tree at Christmas. It didn't last long...probably only as long as it took to rip that first piece of paper off the first package...just a few seconds. That fleeting, giddy sense of exuberance that makes your heart race and your face beam without trying...like the day your child was born...or the day you fell in love. That intangible feeling of being fully and totally appreciative of life and what is happening in the present - and not thinking about the future or past.For me, true happiness is found in that short, fleeting moment and I am learning to accept that in the totality of my life, I may chase it relentlessly to only experience it a handful of times and constantly strive to be grateful for those hard earned moments.