The things that make me happy.

I'm up at 5-something in the morning. Sardinia time. Which is 7 hours advanced over Minnesota time. If I were back in my old haunts, in Minnesota, it'd still be yesterday. And I'd be thinking of going to bed in an hour or two. And my true love in Sardinia would be starting to wake from a night's sleep. Anyway, I like this arrangement. Living abroad. It's been an easy adjustment. I'm not the least bit homesick. Maybe because I'm happy. The astounding thing is that there aren't more happy people in the world. I think Italians are generally more happy than Americans. But I can't be sure of that. Because I don't speak Italian. Therefore, I don't carry on that many conversations with ordinary Italians. I just observe. And I ask my true love many questions. To get a sense of what's going on in Sardinia and in Italy. And I'm able to gauge her feelings. She's mostly happy. But unhappy, too, about political, economic and social goings-on in Italy. She lets things bother her. Far too many. Little things. Makes her a bit unhappy. But I've learned to ignore much of what I can't change. Instead, I'm focused on my love. Of her. And of life in general. The things over which I have some reasonable degree of control. That's what I encourage my true love to do, too. But it's harder when one lives where one has grown up. One becomes too familiar with what's wrong. Often, little petty things. When one is away, like I am, everything looks fresh. Keeps me in an upbeat mood. There's a saying that familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe that's why I'm so disenchanted with American politics. I'm all too familiar with it. Italian politics may be just as bad or even worse than in the USA. But it's different. And fascinating. And funny. Because I'm not yet all that familiar with it. I can laugh at Berlusconi. But my true love can't. She despises him with a passion. Even more than I despise George Bush. Believe me, that's a whole lot. But I look at Berlusconi as an entertaining gadfly. Maybe because he isn't my prime minister. I'm merely a foreigner. Trying to fit in. Trying to learn. Trying to understand. Everything. Especially about the wonders of life. The things that make me happy to be an alive and conscious being. -- Jim Broede