Happiness

I had a dog named Happiness. I named her after a movie, and called her Happy for short, or sometimes just Hap. I’d walk her at nearby Hilltop Park overlooking the city by the old water reservoir. A variety of pine, tall oak and lazy maples grace the semi volcanic rocky soil. Happiness loved Hilltop Park. She’d chase squirrels haphazardly and dart through the trees, stopping by the reservoir to cool down. She got spooked by a snippy mean dog one day, whose owners wisely scooted back to their car; after giving dirty looks generally, as if their dog’s lack of training were somehow others’ doing. Watching them drive away down the windy Hilltop Park Road, tempted to throw them a gesture perhaps but decided to be better then realized Hap was not to be seen. I called out, softly at first ‘Hap’ ‘Haaap!’ then louder ‘Hap Hap Happy’, and with hand cupped around mouth (as if that works) still louder ‘Hap Hap Happiness!’. Then an echo came almost, from across the hilltop ‘Hap Hap Happy, Hap Hap Happiness’. And then the mantra spread, from groups and then even people by themselves, ‘Hap Hap Happy, Hap Hap Happiness’ in unison and occasionally with harmony, ‘Hap Hap Happy, Hap Hap Happiness!’. In the middle of this impromptu choral, for a brief moment I worried that Happiness had been lured to hop in the dirty look snippy mean people car, but then saw her running from group to group, yipping, yapping but mostly wagging her tail and leaping in the air as if in dance. I don’t know how long it went on but when I need to most, I always pause to remember ‘Hap Hap Happy, Hap Hap Happiness!’