Clues to Life: 

Letters to My Grandchildren: Do the Happy Dance 

I am often accused of being too happy or too nice. I wince when this happens. This feels like a put down, an assault on my intelligence or criticism of some sort. Close friends and family know this placid pronouncement about me is not true at all. Like any human being, I’m sad on occasion. I cry, probably too often. But, what is to be gained or given by anyone being blatantly miserable, the opposite of happy or nice? You get what you give and I don’t want misery coming back around my way, like a boomerang, to slap me down. 

I’ve been running into a lot of miserable people here in sunny Florida and this brings me to the Happy Dance. The pandemic sent more people Googling a search for happiness than ever before and my heart is with the deeply depressed but maybe there is something simple I can pass along to you five in my clues to life. 

My friend Cindy took the picture of me. It’s tucked into the edge of a mirror right next to a photo of Willa, 3, and Alex, 2, playing Hide and Seek behind a chair on Christmas. You were all the cutest toddlers in the entire world. All five of you were undeniably beautiful, brilliant children. Of course, I’m not prejudiced.

This particular photograph of my younger self makes me smile on even the worst down days. In the snapshot taken more than 20 years ago, I am standing on a cement divider at the edge of the water in Portofino, Italy, laughing with my arms raised high in euphoria. I’ve jumped up there because I am ecstatic, on a wonderful Italian vacation with good friends. I’m doing what we started calling “the happy dance” back then. You all know this dance well because it worked like magic on long babysitting days. Simply put your hands up in the air and move anyway you’d like. Jump around every which way.

“Let’s do the happy dance,” I’d say. “Turn off the TV. Put down the iPads.”

“Alexa, play ‘Meet Me in the Middle,’” Charlotte or Evie would squeal, ordering poor Alexa, the Amazon smart speaker, to do their bidding. We loved this Zedd and Maren Morris song. Or maybe we’d go with a little Lady Gaga. The music didn’t matter. It was the mood that made all the difference, especially on rainy or cold winter days. 

The pandemic has been like one never-ending, miserable rainy day and even more than simply miserable for millions of people mourning the loss of family, friends, or livelihoods. Doing the happy dance to feel better sounds ridiculous. I know friends who have no reason to be happy. But I’ve run into a lot of strangers here in Florida who don’t have any serious or apparent reasons to be unhappy but who are so cranky that it makes me wince. 

“Put that mask on,” she hollers from a safe distance of six feet away on a gorgeously landscaped walking trail. I have been a loyal mask wearer but when I was alone on a deserted pathway and the sun was shining, I took it off. 

“But…” I start to explain to this stranger while holding my arm up to show her the mask on my wrist, ready to slap on in a second. I take one look at her miserable face and give up without offering any retort. Maybe nothing I, or anyone, can say will make her happy. The encounter makes me want to growl. Get up and do the happy dance, I want to scream. It’s beautiful here!

I step out of a golf cart, reaching around to get a club out of the bag and a man races out of his house, a beautiful home that borders this seventh hole and looks out onto a sparkling blue lake dotted with white egrets and flocks of sea birds. “Oh my,” I say to myself every day, “This is paradise.” This angry guy can’t see it.

“That’s against the rules,” he yells at me.

“Excuse me. What did you say?”

He points to 10-year-old Finn who has driven the cart a mere six feet on the path to move us to the tee where we’ll be hitting our balls. Mine is pink. Finn’s is green. We play from the short tees together and he’s a better golfer than I am already.

“He’s not allowed to drive that golf cart,” this cranky guy insists.

“Thanks so much,” I say. “He just moved it a few yards and I was sitting beside him.”

“It’s still against the rules,” he shakes his head. “Against the rules!”

Oh my God. This guy was sitting inside his kitchen looking outside to catch rule-breakers instead of enjoying what ought to be his good life. He’s rich. He’s not dead from Covid 19. He’s here in a sunny, happy place in the dead of winter when 18 inches of snow have just fallen back in New Jersey. What in God’s name is going on with all the unhappy people who move non-stop from one complaint or nasty observation to the next?

Here’s my advice, a clue to your life: don’t become one of them. As you get older, it’s easy to focus on what’s going wrong. The pace of this twenty-first century is so fast and tumultuous at times that you may not be able to notice the good things: the people, places and moments that make you happy unless you force yourself. You need to get up regularly and do some kind of happy dance to chase away your demons, anxieties, worries, and what-if’s. Go through the motions even when you don’t feel happy at all. And go with gratitude. Be specific. It’s not enough to simply say, “I’m grateful to be alive.” You need to drill down on the small stuff to build your well of gratitude.

Here’s an experience from my 2021 grateful collection. On March 26, Pop Pop and I packed our suitcases and headed off for a beach weekend in an oceanfront room in a 5-star hotel in Vero Beach that we had reserved for our 50^th wedding anniversary. I was over the top with excitement. The room with the view of the Atlantic was expensive at $1,000 a night. Whew. 

“Are you sure? I ask Pop Pop when he books the room for two nights. 

“Yes, I’m sure. Celebrating 50 years of marriage is important and besides, we aren’t paying airfare to fly anywhere.”

After two hours of driving Route 95, we arrive too early to check in and the room isn’t ready, but the concierge is adorable and tells us we’re welcome to use the pool and have lunch ocean-side. Outside on a terrace, the place is packed but the beach and water are beyond fabulous. A Prosecco for me and a gin and tonic for Pop Pop go great with a leisurely lunch. We talk about the day we got married a half century before.

“This is the life,” I say, “and look up there. Those rooms must have amazing views.” It’s a boutique hotel and this weekend will be perfect.

A text indicates that our room is ready and soon we are following a bell-hop with our luggage on a cart. I’ve over-packed because it’s so much fun to go places and do things after months of doing very little, studying Covid statistics and worrying about getting sick or dying.

Second floor, okay, not the top but still high enough. He opens the room door and I can see immediately to the balcony in front of me, the one with the view.

“Where is the ocean?” I ask. 

“I don’t see the ocean,” Pop Pop says. Our view is of an apartment building and a parking lot two floors below. The polite guy with the luggage looks sheepish and embarrassed.

“This reservation was for ocean front. We made it months ago.”

I walk out to the edge of the balcony, lean over and crane my neck to the left where off in the distance, beyond a tacky apartment complex pool, is the Atlantic Ocean. Not out front at all.

On the hotel phone now, the manager downstairs claims that we booked an ocean-side room and that this is ocean-side. 

“But it’s not on the side of the ocean,” Pop Pop argues, very calmly. “And we did not book Oceanside. I booked Ocean Front.” He starts looking for the confirmation email.

 Alas, there are no other rooms with better views available on this busy weekend in March and I start to cry when the manager physically arrives in this room with its parking lot view. He attempts to appease us. 

“How can you possibly call this ocean-side? Please look for the ocean from this balcony,” Pop Pop demands. 

“This is our 50^th wedding anniversary,” I interject. “Are you married?” 

I stop crying but I’m clearly and achingly disappointed. Pop Pop is furious. There is an offer to reduce the price. Aha, did management give our ocean front room away to someone else? Why is this room no longer $1100 a night?

“Yes, I’ve been married for two years,” the young man says answering my question. 

“Well, when you get to 50 years, don’t book a hotel room with a view of the parking lot.”

I look online for another hotel on the beach within 50 miles and there aren’t any. We load the bags back onto the bell hop’s cart and head to our car. I climb into the front seat quickly because it has become apparent to everyone nearby that the hotel management has screwed up someone’s special occasion. I don’t want to tear up in front of these strangers. Pop Pop tries to tip the valet but he refuses the money, saying, “After what happened, I couldn’t accept this.” 

To make matters worse, the valet forgets to put our beach bag into the car, leaving it on the hotel driveway and by the time we realize it’s missing, we are halfway home so we have to turn around, and drive an hour back to retrieve it. That adds more frustration onto our Golden Anniversary weekend. 

This day was sad for sure. Yet, when I looked out at our little pool and across the lake behind our Florida home, I had to laugh realizing that the view was spectacular. Maybe we had to travel and be disappointed to see what was right here in our own backyard. And the next night, the day we got married a half century before, after having dinner at the fabulous Italian restaurant on the water, there was live music and a small dance floor. 

“Let’s dance,” I tell Pop Pop. 

“Yes, let’s dance.”

“Can we make it a happy dance?”

“Of course.”

The next day, the hotel manager called to tell us that the $2200 charge we saw on the American Express card would be wiped away and that we could have a free oceanfront room if we ever cared to come back again. 

As ridiculously trite as it may sound, the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” got stuck in my mind for days. I’ll play it for us next time we do the happy dance together. I loved it in the movie, As Good As It Gets, sung by Art Garfunkel. What I didn’t realize until recently is that British comedian Monty Python wrote the original silly but startlingly true song: 

“Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle

Don’t grumble, give a whistle

And this will help things turn out for the best.”