By Jim Hagarty
2014
I can’t say with any certainty what happiness is. It’s been said that happiness isn’t so much experienced in the present moment as it is remembered as in, that was the happiest day of my life.
But, I am familiar with contentment, the first cousin of happiness. It is not a 24-hour-a-day feeling, but I enjoy it every day and I’m grateful for it. I feel it most in the evenings. Couch, TV, laptop, books, magazine, dog, cat or two, maybe some chips or popcorn. But one big ingredient: lamps.
I love lamps and in a home, am not too fussy about overhead lighting. Nice soft lamplight in the evening makes the most ordinary of living rooms cozy and charming. Almost Old World. Like the old farm cottages with their stone hearths or the castles with their oil lamps everywhere. It is the shadows that create the feeling as much as the light. A night with no lamps and nice lampshades doesn’t hold as much calm for me as one that has those things.
That is why I loved my local bank. A few years ago, it decided to change its business plan and instead of being so clinical, it changed its atmosphere to homey. Nice big easy chairs showed up for those who were waiting. There were numerous copies of daily newspapers about. And at every teller’s wicket, there was a small accent lamp with a nice, tan shade. The lamps were always lit, 24 hours a day and yes, that is not environmentally friendly. But when I walked up to a teller I always felt good. When I went to get cash from the ATM at night, sometimes, it made me feel good to see the lamps on in the closed office.
That is why, a few weeks ago, I was upset to see the lamps had disappeared. I went up to a teller that day and looked all around. Seeing that a special promotion was going on and there were signs and other paraphernalia all around, everywhere, I figured the lamps would come back out when the promotion ended. But they didn’t.
The other day, I stopped a bank manager on her way out of the building and asked her if the lamps would be back. “No,” she said with relief. “They were just a bunch of dust-collecting nuisances.” How differently two people can see a thing.
I went to the ATM on Thursday night. A lot of overhead lights on in the bank. No employees as the office was closed. It could have been an operating room.
This could be a definition of how you know you might be a little bit too sentimental: When you stop a bank manager to ask what happened to the lamps. If the bank closed for good I’d get over it faster than I will the missing lamps.
The little things often affect my contentment more than the big things. Things like lamps can light up my life or create a darkness when they go out.
How many bank managers does it take to change a light bulb?
One too many.
