Sometimes I am alone on the top of a castle rampart isolated by mountains under stormy skies, locked out, unable to descend the stairs. I race towards the stony edge and with three great steps and a leap I am away, part of the sky and the wind, soaring and diving under moody clouds, in total freedom.
I am not always on castle ramparts. Sometimes I am skimming along the surface of a calm, sparkling sea, heading out like an arrow to the horizon under blue sky, the wind rushing over my skin.
![There are many things I realise I’ll never do … But I also know
that I don’t need to do them.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180418065702im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/h/0/w/h/v/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.p4z969.png/1523582790240.jpg)
I see the sun shining on the lobster-red tiles of a sloping roof, or over a network of gardens in an anonymous street, and I know instinctively how peaceful and still it would seem if viewed from above.
My dreams of flying are so vivid that sometimes I wonder whether they are dreams at all, or rather memories from a time before I was born, an innate knowledge of what it is to feel happy and free.
Denis Waitley, the author of a bestselling audio series, The Psychology of Winning, has stated that "happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." Some of us might call it being mindful. I have learnt that these moments of pure happiness can be experienced anywhere, not just in dreams.
Many years ago, I was travelling with a friend on a slim yacht with sails down in 45-knot winds. I was on the yacht out of a sense of loyalty which seems reckless from this distance; the wife of the captain's best mate had vetoed her husband being part of the voyage, the weather looking too threatening. I, on the other hand, as the captain's then girlfriend, decided I couldn't leave him to sail the 40-foot yacht in strong winds alone.
Visibility was poor when we reached deep water, the mist white and thick around us and the sea stirring uneasily. The yacht battled valiantly, travelling up the ridge of each large wave and down the other side, her hull swirling forward and then gently back, ready to ride the next wave.
Despite the danger, there was breathtaking beauty and grace in this sleek yacht rising again and again, keeping us safe from the galloping, full-bodied white horses chasing us across the bay.
There have been other moments of sheer joy. Once, when the night seemed too young to finish, in the flush of new friendships, I set out into the cold from a ski chalet under a high winter sky to trudge with friends through thigh-deep soft snow.
We fought our way up the steep mountain slope, breathless when we reached the summit. From there we marvelled at the whiteness of the world, so silent and bereft, as desolate as the moon. Below us, the ski lifts rotated endlessly on their metal track up and back, the only stirring in the stillness of the night.
Moments of joy need not be grand. Being caught in the rain without an umbrella – drenched through to the skin, hair dripping, socks sodden, shoes spongy – brings alive all the senses. Then, to open the door to a warm house and step inside, thankful, shedding shoes, socks, clothes in a sloppy trail to the bathroom, turning on the hot, mixing in the cold, slipping under the shower and feeling the warmth on cold skin – this never ceases to make me feel lucky and grateful.
There are many things I now realise that I will never do in my life: bungy-jumping, leaping out of a plane for fun and kite-surfing are but a few experiences that have happily fallen off my bucket list. I am not in my 20s any more and I now appreciate, in a way I didn't back then, that we are all mortal. But I also know that I don't need to do those things to get a rush of joy.
I find it in good conversation around a table, where words are engulfed by waves of laughter. I find it in hearing my children's jokes, in secreting a hot water bottle into their beds knowing they will be suffused with warmth as they snuggle under the doona.
I find it in witnessing little acts of generosity: the people who make the effort to include in a conversation individuals hovering uncertainly on the edge of a group; the children who place kindness before self-interest; the sharing of stories at the end of the day when the light is dimming and a great hush has descended on the household.
These little slices of life, these simple moments of joy, are what I think really matter.