Joy in the midst
I felt guilty walking the High Line, stealing time with the Eastern Redbuds all puffed out in hot pink clusters. I’d just shown Alison, my friend and colleague, a video from my brother-in-law. Near his niece’s dorm, police were climbing up a ladder and through windows at Columbia University. I was in New York for work, helping clients respond to protests spreading across campuses. But here we were on the elevated rail that the city turned into a public park, turning our faces to the warmth of the sun while we dragged our suitcases behind us.
We wandered up NoLita’s brick sidewalks, where we stumbled upon a newlywed couple posing for photos. The bride clutched a small white bouquet and smiled into the groom. A little further down, flowers reached out from the open doors of a clothing boutique. Inside, a red sweatshirt said, “French Enough.” I laughed and brought it into the dressing room to show Alison, who joined in. While we waited in line, I browsed the display of last-minute add-ons at the counter and picked up a small journal with the word “Joie” on the cover.
On my way to the hotel, I was surprised to find myself making plans to write in it. Gratitude practices had felt ripe for spiritual bypass. Does difficulty lessen if we turn away and force ourselves to be thankful? Joy felt purer, maybe, because we can’t talk ourselves into it. Joy finds us. I was negotiating some “rules” with myself:
Write one joy each day.
It doesn’t have to be the kind with a Capital J.
Okay, it can be “JOYS + GRATITUDES + things I’m proud of. (I wrote this on the inside cover.)
The first entry was on April 29, 2024, the day I bought it: Time with Alison – so easy and comfortable. Spring in NYC. The parks. The warmth. The people all in good moods. A couple getting married. The next day, I noted a “Starbuds” truck with a marijuana-leaf logo designed to look like Starbucks. Hilarious, I wrote. And then, My Joie journal. I had momentum. By summer, I was making daily lists of gratitude. What dogs have taught me about opening up to love. Vermont and the land here that steadies me.
When Fall arrived, I began carrying the Joie notebook with me so I could capture my notes in real time. On October 18, I ran out of room. My last entry: Hope for a different way, and one that involves compassion to heal the country. On that same day, I wrote in my regular journal: I feel defeated and sad. Joy and despair, in the same handwriting. Joy didn’t replace what was hard: it sprouted from jagged cracks. Then I decided to read the Joie one from cover to cover.
The moments rushed back into focus: The woman dancing with her hand out the window on the Mass Pike. My father tearing up at his 80th birthday toasts. My youngest pulling me close at bedtime: “Do you know how much I love you?” I’d forgotten many of them, but they weren’t far. I only had to read my journal to feel their nearness. This was how I wanted to learn to remember my life. I didn’t need help retaining the hard stuff.
I’m four joy journals and two years in now. I fall off sometimes, thinking (hoping) that I don’t need it anymore. But I picked it back up a few weeks ago after reading the news. I was on a walk with my husband and our dog on one of the first warm days after winter, when the mounds of snow were beginning to melt. I turned to him and said, “We need more joy.”
I’m unfolding, if a bit warily, into the world again: on the lookout for joy. I wish you could have seen my friend Jeff and his band play Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” at a local bar the other night. Their joy caught everyone in the room.
A note on mindfulness practice:
On the days when I struggle to find something to write in my joy journal, I close my eyes and drop in this question: what sparks joy? Then I pause to watch what images, thoughts, and memories gather. And on the days when they don’t, I try to let myself off the hook. We can’t have joy become a job.