Feelings of utter contentment

It’s funny how a small thing can spark off a long hidden memory. I was walking along an isle in a department store the other day, not looking for anything in particular, just killing time while my wife hunted backpacks for the kids. I found myself in the toy section and there I saw it, a Lego pirate ship. I had a feeling of want that a five year old gets and suddenly I was transported back to my childhood.

My favorite toy as a child was Lego. I had an entire town with roads, a fire station, and 2 battery powered trains that would circumnavigate the town. I would spend entire days creating scenarios for the characters in my town to perform in. One day there might be a train crash and on another day a giant dinosaur rampaging through the town.

Of course my town had its hero’s. There were policeman, fireman and a whole host of inch high plastic actors that would perform my play.

What struck me most about my flashback wasn’t the memory of the town but more the feeling I had while I was playing with it, a feeling of utter contentment. And what saddened me was that I couldn’t remember a time when I felt that content. I think, as you get older you fill your life with things, computers, cars, and houses. Things that you think will lead to happiness. But the more you add things to your life the more claustrophobic you feel.

I tried to think back to times in my adult life when I was truly content. Memories started to come into my head and when I started to compare them I realized something amazing. None of the memories I was recalling had anything to do with money or anything expensive.

The first memory was when I was 32. I was living in an old railway station just out side of Philadelphia. It was an amazing place; built in the 1870’s it was a solid, wooden structure with oiled hard wood floors and an old wood-burning stove right in the middle of the living room. There was a covered porch that led out into a small garden and on warm summer afternoons I would lie there in my hammock, on my porch and read a book with maybe a cup of tea by my side. Twice a day on weekends a huge diesel locomotive would rumble past and shake the foundations. It wasn’t an annoying thing; on the contrary, it was actually quite soothing. The train and line were now owned by a railway club who took tourists on joy rides through the countryside of Chester County. At Christmas they would have the “Santa Express” and on Halloween they would turn the carriages into a ghost train. I remember sitting on my porch and thinking how envious everyone waving at me must be because I lived in such a wonderful home.

I lived in the back half of the building, the front half being occupied by the owner and his girlfriend. Wonderful people, they had lovingly restored the station ten years before.

The building had gone through various chapters in its life. After the railway had decommissioned the track it had been builders merchants and eventually become derelict and it was in this state that Kenny and Shelley had found it. The love that they had for this building could be seen in every restored board on the floor and in the reflection on ever panel of glass. They lived in the upstairs of the front half. Downstairs they had a shop selling pottery. They had a kiln behind the house and Kenny would spend the year making bowls, plates and other ceramic gifts to sell in the shop. During the winter months they moved to South America where they owned a farm and I was left with the whole house to myself. The informal rental agreement that we had also stated that I cat sit for them during those months. Snarf was a unique cat, part sloth, part door-stop he was mocked on a regular basis by the mice that came in looking for a warm place to live when the weather got too cold outside. He once bought a dead mouse to the front door and I swear I saw an expression of indignation on his face when it was mentioned that the mouse had probably died of natural caused and that Snarf had probably tripped over it while walking to his afternoon nap.

Another memory of contentment occurred in the same house but this time involved a girl. I had met Jennifer through my boss. She was another budding photographer living in New York. She would occasionally come to Philadelphia for weekend trips and would stay with her. I first started really talking to her the weekend after 9/11. She had come to Philly to escape the devastation. We decided to go to an old farmhouse to shoot some film and then went back to my boss’s house for a meal. After she went back to New York we kept in touch and on one trip she asked if she could stay with me. In hind site I realize that I read way too much into what she was asking probably due to the fact that I was totally besotted by her.
That night I was the totally gentleman. We talked until about 2 am about nothing in particular. We shared ideas, music and thoughts and then, when we got tired I started to ser up the sleeping bag on my sofa. Then I heard the best sentence a man could hear in the entire universe “You don’t have to do that, we can share a bed”. This was closely followed by the worst sentence in the universe, the sentence that every man dreads . . . . . “ . . . . . . I trust you”

So, we both fell asleep, dressed in sweats, me, personifying the term “Personal Space” kept to my side of the bed all night. The next morning we woke and lay in bed talking. For some reason that completely escapes me I touched the small of her back (through the sweatshirt). She immediately took my hand and wrapped it around her waste . I really can’t tell you what was going through my mind at that particular moment but I know that it wasn’t “Oh no, please don’t do that”.
So, there we lay for what seemed like forever, her asleep in my arms and me doing anything that I possibly could so that this moment didn’t end. Then, in a moment that was pure sit-com the phone rang. Jennifer woke and without thinking picked up the phone. “Hello . . . . . . hang on. Paul, it’s Ellie”. It was my boss wondering why it was ten o’clock and I wasn’t at work. Then she said “Are you still in bed” to which I replied innocently and with all the forward thinking of a tulip “Yes”. There was a pause followed by “Oh! Well, take the rest of the morning off”
After I hung I the phone I suddenly thought about the events that had transpired and realized that Ellie was now sitting at her desk putting two and two together and coming up with 36.

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, even if you can’t see what it is at the time. One of the things that came out of this encounter was a newfound love of photography. I was now embracing this long lost pass time with a new found passion that has quickly turned it from a mere hobby into something that defines who I am.

These are two instances of total contentment in my life that are only related by the location where they happened and the simplicity of the event.
When I moved to San Diego one of my main regrets was that I had to leave the house behind. Fully knowing that I would never again live in a place like this that was truly a home.