Johnson Family Dish

Happiness Survey

So I am getting down to the wire with the research that I have been doing on happiness for my honors project. It is time for me to begin collecting actual data, that is where you, my friends and family come in. I need adults of all ages and both genders to complete this survey.

With the help of my mentor, Clark Smithson and Beth Gioia, my psych and honors professor, I have composed a survey in effort to measure happiness in conjunction with seven facts I have discovered related to happiness. The survey is actually made up of 2 surveys: a five question “Satisfaction with Life” survey and also a 20 (possibly 21, the jury is still out) question survey. If you are willing to take my survey, I will e-mail the tests to you. If you are interested in the findings, I can get those to you at Christmas time, just make a note on your completed survey.

This information is just for me. I will use the survey information gathered in a general manner, that is: all respondent information will be shared as a whole, not in individual respondent’s parts.

And one disclaimer, this is not a facebook quiz!! This is an effort to gather data for an actual research project. You will not have some cute little icon pop up with your quiz results either, .

P.S. Send me your e-mial address @ michelle@johnsonfamilydish.com if you are willing to take this survey.

Charis is 7!

Our baby is seven tomorrow. How that even happened I am not sure. All I really know is that she has been a light and a blessing to our little family ever since her arrival. She arrived here 14 days later than she was expected, which caused no small amount of stress and discomfort for her mother. When she did finally come, she came with a bang! With a little over two hours of labor Charis was born into her daddy’s hands at 5:30 one morning, which cause no small amount of stress and discomfort for her father. We didn’t really plan for her to be born that way but, it was one of the most tender moments of our lives, which we will never forget. I remember looking at her after her daddy handed her to me. We were still attached as I watched her look around quietly and without breathing; she didn’t need to breathe, I was still giving her oxygen, through the cord which connected us. I examined her, discovering that I had given birth to our fourth girl. I cleared the fluid from her mouth and nose. I cannot fully convey with words the feelings of that moment; I am sure I will never match it. Randon was on the phone with our midwife frantically asking what he should do next but, I knew. We just needed to be quiet and wait, and we did.

How seven years have past since the day she was born, I don’t know. But, Charis has grown to be such a happy girl. She loves to help people and I love that about her. She is our last child and Randon and like to say that, like Jerry Seinfeld, we have ended on a high note.

Dominoes

So I hope that this is not the only way I find time to blog but, this is another of my creative writing assignments, which is going to serve a dual purpose as both the fulfillment of an assignment and material for my blog. In the previous post, the prompt was to write about our first job. It is always amazing where writing takes you, as both reader and writer.

In this assignment we are focusing on scene and I had to start with the prompt: The last time I heard (blank) song by (blank) artist, we were down at (blank) and (blank) was happening (action). So, here is my 2nd creative non-fiction piece, happy reading.

The last time I heard “Wrapped Up In You” by Garth Brooks, I was in the kitchen monitoring a frying pan of onions, garlic, celery and mushrooms, when behind me I felt a hand at my waist. The size and the warmth of that hand gave away the identity of its owner. Taking the spatula out of my hand and placing it on the counter with his other hand was my dance partner, turned husband, Randon. He turned me around, took me by the waist, placing my right hand in his, and began dancing with me. I couldn’t help but tip my head back and let out a mirthful laugh at the happy interruption. The sound of laughter brought our two youngest daughters, Addison and Charis, running out of their bedrooms. They ran through the living room, which proudly displays portraits of the family war heroes, generations of wedding day photos, and loved ones long since gone. Together they burst into the kitchen stopping suddenly as they rounded the corner and saw their mother and father playfully dancing and laughing together in the kitchen.

The smell of the vegetables sautéing on the stove permeated the air. The little girls did not stand looking on for long. Giggling, they were just tall enough to wedge right between us, one at waist level and one just above, and push us apart. Once separated Addison grabbed my two hands declaring that I should “spin her.” What she meant by spin was twirl. That is, holding her hand in mine, just above her head, my fingers weave around her hand as if they were twirling a baton, her body then, following her hand, twirls. While Charis took her daddy’s hands and wiggled back and forth, shaking her entire head and body with the movement, her long curly hair blurring her face. She couldn’t keep that up for long so her daddy scooped her up into his strong arms and danced a funny little back and forth dance with her. The kitchen, painted a shade of yellow that resembles melted butter, happily accommodated two additional dancers.

Randon and I are not really dancers. We both have terrible rhythm and form, we bounce too much when we dance and too often, without realizing it, I tend to take the lead. Anyone watching us could see that we lack natural aptitude and any amount of skill. So, it is strange that were it not for dancing, we might not have ever met.

We met in September, just after my twentieth birthday. We were both at a dance. I had come by choice with two girl friends. He had come after being cajoled by his two older sisters. Country music was blaring from the speakers. It is still hot in Phoenix at the end of September; the air conditioning could not possibly keep up with the body heat that was being generated in this room. It was just larger than the size of a standard basketball court, complete with a hardwood floor, and full of people, moving, dancing people. At first glance, it looked as though the whole room was in motion. The dance floor was so crowded that dancers were bumping into one another. On one side of the room, the side from which everyone entered, those who were not dancing stood watching the perpetual motion of the dance floor. This is where I found him.

I came to these dances a lot and I knew all of the best dance partners. I had learned some basic steps so that in the hands of a good leader I could, usually, keep up. Though I had accidentally tripped a few partners or missed one of his cues to turn, sometimes resulting in a collision with another couple, it was a rare thing for me not to be dancing. I can’t recall why I wasn’t dancing when I saw him standing there. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, or I would not have met him, I think it was because all of my favorite partners were dancing with other people. Whatever the reason was, I saw him standing there, alone, watching the moving dance floor and I felt compelled to go ask him if he wanted to dance. And I did. He turned me down telling me he did not know how to dance. I always wondered why guys like him even came to these dances if they were not going to dance; they were just going to stand there, alone. I thought this was just a polite way to say “no thank you, leave me alone, please.” As these thoughts were racing through my head and I was turning to leave he said with a smirk, “but you could teach me.”

I don’t remember what song was playing then but, I remember giving him dancing lessons for the rest of that night. It is true that I wasn’t really fit to teach him. I had no idea how to teach a man to lead, I simply told him to follow my steps, and that is what we did, song after song. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, I counted in my head continuously as I taught him the two-step because it was the easiest and most versatile dance I knew.

We were strangers then. When I think back to that night, and that man I met who was standing still in a moving room, it seems as though that was an altogether different man than the man who is dancing in the kitchen with our little girls and I. And in a lot of ways he is a different man; I am not the girl who approached him that night either. I have climbed into the attic in my mind where I keep memories and I have sorted through files looking for when exactly we changed or what it was that changed us. To my surprise I could not find one event that changed us into who we are today, instead I have found that the changing was gradual. It was a sequence of changes; like thousands of dominoes standing in formation just waiting for the first one to fall so that each one could systematically follow suit, executing their reason for being stood up. But, the dominoes of change move in slow motion, not like the real life dominoes that take hours to line up and seconds to fall. These dominoes work differently. First, you never know they are there at all until you look back and see that there is a line of them behind you neatly fallen down. They don’t fall every day either. In fact you never know when they will fall. And looking at them all lying there reminds you of all the lessons learned and adjustments that were made together, for each other.

Yet somehow, with all of the changing we have done, he is, for me, still that man standing still. He is constant and dependable in our world of change. I did not know then how much I needed him to be standing firm, with his quiet strength, always there, a refuge I turn to when all of the movement is too much.