Happy

Happy

Is happiness vulgar? I have often wondered about this. Now, I wonder about it all the time. Even though I used to say that happy people are evil and foolish, it occurs to me now and then: No, it's not easy to be happy, and it requires a lot of thought.

I am the happiest person in the world when I am walking on the beach with my four-year-old daughter, Rumi. And what does the happiest person in the world want the most? What he wants most, of course, is to be the happiest person in the world all the time. So he knows how important it is to do one thing over and over again. That's why we always do the same thing.

First, I would tell her: what time and what time are we going to walk on the beach today. Kisame always wanted the time to come earlier, but her concept of time was a bit confusing. For example, she would suddenly appear beside me and ask, "Is it time yet?"

"No."

"Will it be a time in five minutes?" "No, it's not until two and a half hours from now."

Five minutes later, she'll come back and ask, with an innocent look on her face, "Daddy, are we going to the beach now?" Or before long, she'll say to me again in a sly tone, "Are we going now?"

Although it seemed like the time would never come, it did after all. Kisame put on her bathing suit and got into her four-wheeled children's car with bath towels, a few bathing suits, and a simple backpack. I put the backpack on her lap and pushed her cart off as I always do.

As we walked along the cobblestone path, Rui Meng would open her mouth and let out an "ahhhhhhh" cry. The rocks made Rumo sing! Listening to the song made us all laugh.

We head down the trail that leads to the beach and it couldn't look more ordinary. We parked the cart on the beach just a few steps away from the water. At this point, Kisame would say, "Pirates will never get here."

We quickly threw everything on the rocks and then took off our clothes and walked into the knee-deep water. Then I said, "It's calm here, don't go too far. I'm going to go for a short swim and we'll hang out when I get back, okay?"

"Okay."

I swam for a while, leaving all my thoughts behind me. When I stopped, I looked back at the beach from afar and Kisame in her swimsuit looked like a little red dot. I loved her so much. Suddenly I wanted to laugh in the water while she frolicked on the beach.

Back on the shore, we started playing together: kicking a ball; splashing water; dad spraying water with his mouth; simulating swimming; throwing stones into the sea; digging a small hole, and talking at it. Come on, don't be afraid, now start swimming and all our favorite games and activities. Once we've played them all, we'll start over.

"Your lips are purple, are you cold?" "No, I'm not cold!" "You're cold, come on out." This would go on for a while, and then we would reluctantly return to the shore. However, as I was drying Rumo off and getting ready to change her swimsuit, she suddenly slipped out of my arms and ran naked across the beach, laughing loudly. She laughed even harder when I tried to run barefoot across the beach and accidentally tripped and fell. "See, if I had shoes on, I would have caught you," I said. I said so, and I did so, whereupon Kisame let out a squeal.

On the way back, I pushed Kisame's cart. We were both very tired, but unusually happy.

We longed for life and thought back to the sea behind us, without saying a word.