Happy all the time

Not too long ago Pentimento shared an excerpt from The Lone Pilgrim by Laurie Colwin and linked to an article that mentioned her early death of heart failure. Her name jumped to mind when I was at the library the other day, so I picked up Happy All the Time, which happens to be the book reviewed in the article, with more detail and eloquence than what you are going to read here. Colwin had published 10 books before she died in 1992; this one was written in the 70s. It is the story of two distant cousins who are close friends. They meet two smart and attractive women and get married, and the four of them become great pals.

I kept waiting for the unhappiness to set in. Surely the title is meant to be ironic, isn’t it?  For some reason, I had it in my head, wrongly I reconfirmed after finishing the book, that Colwin had committed suicide, so I expected that the characters were waiting for disaster or betrayal, or both.


But nothing really bad actually happens. These people meet, become attracted to each other, eventually allow themselves to fall in love, have a baby, struggle a bit at work, and lead lives of understated contentment. They suffer a little from jealousy and misunderstanding. They find being in love a bumpy road. But soon enough they forgive each other and go out to dinner. They meet interesting and rude people and have clever conversations. They drink and eat well and work at meaningful jobs and maintain a close friendship.

When I finished I wondered if I missed something? I liked the book, although the characters seemed a bit opaque and almost too clever. The story is devoid of sentimentality; the characters purposefully avoid it. One of the characters, Guido, is philosophical and usually thinks before acting, but meets a girl, courts her, and marries her in short order. His best friend Vincent usually acts on whims, but when he falls in love finally with the right girl, he can’t make decisions and second guesses himself until he is overcome with love for his young lady and has to act. The main characters experience a little growth, but minor; they are mostly static characters.


So the story is about how life just happens, a series of small dramas, without being the big drama we expect and perhaps hope for.  Colwin presents a believable and clever tale about the capacity of love and friendship to give meaning to life. The reviewer in the linked article, Jonathan Yardley, compares her work to Jane Austen's for her keenly observed portrait of domestic life.

Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal has an article about overrating happiness. In recent studies, sociologists have found that people who are mostly happy but have some stress from the responsibilities of life are usually more content and healthier than people who chase after perfect happiness. In fact the researchers even found that people who had the kind of stress in their life that comes from working at a meaningful job, or raising children, or maintaining long term relationships, had lower rates of Alzheimer’s, because in the long run, that stress from responsibility came from meaningful work or goal-seeking that contributed to feelings of "eudaimonic well-being." People who question their happiness and intentionally seek it typically are unhappier than these people that suffer a little bit in pursuit of love and goals. (the Lenten lesson from today's WSJ ...)

An interesting point for a naval gazer like myself. My life seems to alternate between periods of extreme business and periods of relative aimlessness. As my sister has pointed out, part of mothering is being available, even if you aren’t needed at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t be setting some goals, in order to move beyond fulltime mothering and parttime occasional volunteer work to something more defined, whether it be going back to school or working on a project, or getting serious about getting back into shape so I can compete in a triathlon in Guam. And then a situation like yesterday arises: I thought I had the whole day to work on various little projects, but a sick child called home and friends dropped in and a ride to gymnastics fell through, and meanwhile my husband is in Alabama for two weeks. So it is good I was available yesterday. More on this. Because now I’ve got to move on to one of my responsibilities.