Being happy and knowing it...

My first completed read of the new year is a book I have been wanting to read for approximately twenty years.  Fried Green Tomatoes has been a favorite movie of mine since the first time I saw it.  The storyline and the relationships expressed in the film are a constant inspiration for my writing.  So, on my trip to California, I read the novel by Fannie Flagg.  I was surprised at how completely different it was from the movie, and was again surprised when I found out that Flagg also co-wrote the screenplay.

Although I only rated the literary version 3 out of 5 stars on goodreads.com, there was a handful of brilliant lines within the story.  One in particular is just perfect in its description of life.  It's in a segment where 87-year-old Ninny Threadgoode is talking to her younger friend Evelyn about life during the Depression.  She says,


We were happy and didn't know it.


In all my research into 9/11 last year, I garnered myself a new anxiety of flying.  I literally worked myself into a panic attack on each flight on the way home, but there was this moment somewhere 35,000 feet above the ground when I looked out my window onto the clouds and that line echoed in my head.  I thought to myself, this is life- right here, right here on this plane, in the middle of the sky.  Since I can remember, my life has always been a matter of getting somewhere. I was consistently in transport.  When I was young, it was about waiting til I could be a writer, then it was about surviving high school; when I was with my high school boyfriend, it was getting through til I saw him again or until we were married.  What I was doing at the moment was only being done simply to get me to someplace else.  But yesterday, my life suddenly stopped flat at 500 miles per hour, and I finally realized what Eckhart Tolle means when he says to live in the now.  This is my life.  Right now.  And whether I am washing the dishes or hanging with rock stars, my life is good.  And, though I may not always realize it, I am happy.

 
This is a photo I took when I visited "Whistle Stop, Alabama" (aka Juliette, Georgia) where the movie Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed.  The building that posed as the Whistle Stop Cafe now really is a cafe, but if you're looking for some barbeque, save yourself a trip and just drive to your local McDonald's for a McRib sandwich.  You'll get the same effect.