Recovering Joy

Those long days at work.

Fourteen hours? I need a recovery day after that, but today was also an early day. And a busy one. Good busy. Spent it with my son. At the zoo. I can't help but think of the James Taylor song. 

Just knocking around the zoo on a Thursday afternoon.

I slip into joy just thinking about it. One of my favorites.

I love the zoo. My son and I spent a lot of time there when he was a little guy. There was a tiny zoo in Brandywine Park, the Brandywine Zoo, near where we lived in Delaware. We spent so much time there with the tigers and the otters. Today at the Philadelphia Zoo, the tigers were nowhere to be found and the otters were napping in the sunshine. Most of the animals were sleeping. All the big cats were, except for the cougar. She was sitting in the shade panting. It was hot and muggy.  


But our zoo is well designed, with a lot of shade and buildings along the walking route that get you out of the sun and the heat and into the air conditioning. 

The zebras, giraffes, hippos, and rhinos were loving the weather. And the new baby giraffe was frolicking all around. Made me smile.

I ended up buying a membership. 

They make it easy to decide. An individual membership includes free parking and a guest. It's only about $20 more than a single visit, a no-brainer. I think my son realizes that we're going to be going there several times during the year. And if my daughter comes to visit from Chicago, we'll go too. I may even put out an invitation to friends when I go. Who wouldn't want to go to the zoo? 

I've given myself the gift of a couple of memberships. The Philadelphia Art Museum. I went a few years ago with a group of friends. I'd lived here for for about thirteen years and had never gone. It was amazing. I joined that day. They also make it easy to decide. You can apply your entrance fee to the membership. There's a discount on parking and guests. Not quite as generous in their terms as the zoo is. It's a small art museum and it's easy to see the whole thing in a few hours. It has a wonderful collection and tremendous visiting exhibits. I may even have written about seeing one in June. 

Immersing in art is restorative, and helps me to recover my energy and joy.

But I was stubborn around visiting both the art museum and the zoo here. I grew up in Washington with the Smithsonian Institution and never paid an entrance fee to the National Zoo or the National Museum of Art or any of the other marvelous museums on the Mall. It seemed ludicrous to me that one would have to pay an admission. 

It's funny how we cling to the ways we are shaped and have such a hard time shifting.

And what we can lose by being unwilling to shift our perspective and our behaviors.

And what we gain when we finally do. 






The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.

Sustaining Joy

It's Wednesday, the middle of the week, the "hump day" to get over.

I've been doing a deep dive into joy this week, and the inevitable question around sustaining it has come up. My ultimate conclusion is that maybe we don't sustain it, but that it is available to step into at any time. The truth is, life can be filled with or riddled with or dotted with inevitable disappointments, challenges, and frustrations. As well as so many other things that might be able to take us out of our joy. I've been pondering whether joy is a stream we flow in or whether it comes in bursts. 

I found myself declaring in my morning journal today that I choose joy again. It may be all about awareness. I am feeling into all of this this week; it's been an expedition into the soul's landscape, seeking to discover where joy might be found there. 

I've found it all over the place, along with many other things. The key for me is a decision about where to put my energy. 

It's all there in my soul. If I were to hop online and look up different kinds of emotions and states of being and make a list, I'd find them all there in the landscape of my soul, and yours. It's rather like the Earth. All the landscapes are there, available to us. Where do we choose to live? Where to travel? To vacation? To explore? To wander? To be restored? What do we drive through on our way to work? Where do we go for a picnic? Where do we get our food and our water and the air that we breathe?  Are there places we avoid? How do we travel? 

Each choice contributes to the quality of our experience.

So is joy a stream we flow in or does it come in bursts?

I experience joy both ways. In the morning, as I wake and choose how I will come into the day, I find myself stepping into a stream of joy. This morning it's once again been the fragrance of peaches on the air in my kitchen that keeps my awareness in this stream. It's my long day at work again today and I know that sustaining joy as flow may be difficult, so I commit to checking in with myself throughout the day, sinking into awareness and gratitude to help me to feel joy as bursts of energy that will sustain me through any challenges, frustrations, disappointments, annoyances I may encounter as I move through the day. 

Instead of trying to sustain joy, I allow joy to sustain me. Whether it's by flow through gentle awareness or by bursts of revitalizing energy. 

Landmarks are important. They help us to remain aware of our surroundings. I can take a peach with me to work and, just by enjoying the fragrance and then the taste of its sweetness and its juiciness, I can reconnect with joy in the moment. 

It's the loving thing to do. 






The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.

Joy Comes With the Morning

Joy comes in the morning.

The thought comes to me this morning as I get out of bed and begin to move through my house opening everything up for the day. The shades. The windows. The fans in the windows. The water in the kettle. 

I keep saying to myself, "I know this quote. Where does it come from? It is a quote, right?"  I promise myself that I will look it up as soon as I finish with all my morning practices and connect with the outside world. 

I open my morning journal and begin to write.

Joy comes in the morning.

Could it be the fragrance of peaches in my kitchen? Or the vivid pink hydrangea blooms in the vase on my kitchen counter that remind me of the time I spent recently in my mother's garden? Or my still clear kitchen table? 

Or the trimmed parsley plant that is standing proud and tall in the sunshine on the windowsill next to my kitchen sink? Hadn't it seemed to be dying just a few days before, when I transplanted it from the vegetable garden at Mom's, where it was not doing well for lack of light? The tomato plants had overgrown it and it was failing to thrive. But here, after some pruning and time, everything has changed. 

Or the sunshine we are so fortunate to have? Or the birdsong? The early morning with no trace of power tools? The cherries waiting to be washed and held by my new pottery berry bowl? The sound of the painted glass chime hanging in the window? The one with the silver spirals and the tiny mirrors that reflect the light? 

Yes. All of it. 

Joy comes when we invite it. When we open to it. When we decide it's our choice. When we cultivate it. And maybe this all sounds a bit cheesy, but it is true. 

I find myself this morning writing again about joy. And there is a whole day ahead to cultivate it. It's free and open before me. What will it look like?

I hear the whisper of the water in the kettle, just before it boils. I feel the breeze from the fan in the window, cool because it is still early in the day.

I smell the fragrance of peaches and want to feel the juice running all over my hands before I taste the sweetness. I see the comfortable artifacts of home as I look around me.

Joy comes in the morning.

In the space between waking and the day's motion, I settle in to myself - my hair is loose and wild, the robe I wear is loose and open. It catches the breeze and lifts. Yes, there's breeze in my kitchen today.

The tea is steeping and I'm thinking about fruit. It's so abundant this time of year. And flowers - I'm thinking about flowers also. Fruit and flowers bring me joy. Walking through the desert brings me joy. Looking out my window at night to see the planet Mars shining orange and brilliant in the Eastern sky brings me joy. 

So much joy fills me up when I loose my eyes to see it and my voice to name it and my heart to embrace it. 

Yes. Loose. For in joy I am unbound.







The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.


And that quote - it is actually "Joy comes with the morning," from Psalm 30. "Weeping may linger through the night, but joy comes with the morning." For me, though, there is a sense of joy being part of the fabric of the morning. It is IN it as well as coming WITH it. Perhaps it is the same thing. Perhaps not. Doesn't matter, really. Joy is. 

Filling Up with Joy

It started with the cherries.

Rainier and Bing. I bought them both. Then I bought the salmon, and the cod. And peaches. I bought those too. Their fragrance called to me as I was walking off. Sweet potatoes. Yep. I bought them too. Sweet onions. A good mineral water. 

And there was probably more. 

Two weeks ago I was detoxing. Last week I was sinking into rest and remembrance. I even brought back rosemary cut from my mother's garden. This week it's all about the joy. I just decided. 

It was tricky for awhile last night. In my exhaustion. In my trying to write with a positive vibe. I got there, but first I needed to acknowledge the truth of things. 

There's some wisdom to this - in the large and small things of life.

Monday mornings can be tricky too. Especially if there's residue from Sunday. And there might have been. But the morning was cool and soft. The tea was warm and comforting. The blank page of my morning journal beckoned. I had a good pen. The kind that pleases me as it scratches across the page. 

I planned the day and opened my laptop to begin this writing.

And...jackhammers.

Well, if there's something I've learned about them in this current neighborhood project, they tend to begin early and go away after a few hours. So I went to the store. It really wasn't a hard decision. Set aside the agenda for the day, perhaps even tumble the elements, and decide to do it differently. 

That may be one of the secrets to choosing joy. Choosing it. Deciding to create a different outcome for yourself when you can. And we usually can. And if we can't, we can at least choose how we are going to be in the middle of it. 

That, we can always do. 

The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.

Stillness

Sundays are brutal for writing. Let's just be truthful about that.

If I had not committed three months to this daily writing practice, I would not be writing today. I'd be sacked out on the couch, resting. I expend a lot of energy on Sunday and it can be exhausting. The day begins very early, builds in intensity throughout the morning and into the afternoon. And then I begin to withdraw the energy I've been sustaining intensely for hours. It's very public work and when that part of it is over there is often one-on-one or small group work. It all requires deep presence.

The best metaphor I can use is of fullness to empyting. The container collapses and slowly regains its form.  

So for this writing, I simply acknowledge it and am with it. Otherwise I think I'll get a headache trying to be something and someone and somewhere and somehow that I am not. 

There is freedom in truthful acknowledgment. 

The evening is cool and dark. Night has fallen and the street is quiet. All the striving of the day has been put down for its rest.

The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.

 

Return

The wind moves softly among the leaves. 

The day is soft. The blistering temperatures and stifling humidity have withdrawn. For today. Everything seems to be taking a deep breath. And so am I.

I was fortunate to spend the day learning. More time out of mind and the normal routine. I drove a stranger to the train station and left a friend to board for New York. I'm thinking about dinner. Fortunately, I took something out to thaw. A savory beef soup with roasted carrots and potatoes. There is cheese on the counter and cherries. A small vase of hydrangea from my mother's garden. 

I brought them home with me. 

The air in my kitchen is scented with fresh basil and lemon balm. More gifts from my mother's garden. 

I close my eyes and sink into my heartspace. Open them and take in the view. Wide open sky framed by verdant green treetops. 

Home. 

The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.

Untitled

It's the last morning with this writing view for awhile, maybe ever.

That's the beautiful thing about writing in unexpected places. You see differently. I've even noticed rhythmic changes in the short time I've been here. I've written morning, afternoon, evening, and late night. I've written in sunshine and storm. Most of the time it's been steamy and sticky. 

I've been with all the moods. And they've been with me.

I've allowed myself to sink into times long past, through memory, through atmosphere, through place. I've looked up and down and out. I've looked to the left into other rooms and to the right into a mirror and into flowers from the garden. I've paused and held artifacts and relics with my attention. 

I close my eyes and sink into stillness and into my own breath.

And, there, in my own heartspace I find what I have come for. 

The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of the usually are.