Updated 4/15, 9:48am:
No. This wasn't right. Yes, I have lots of joy. Yes, I seek joy. But the trick isn't to find a circus act filled with joyful tricks, or at least that's not right for me. This is a time for focused joy. Love. Write. Nothing more, nothing less. The joy will come through the love of writing, and my writing is a love letter to the world. Not scattered joy, but focused joy. I see it more clearly now.
***
T.S. Eliot told us that it was April, but he was wrong.
March is when I wonder if I will make it to the school year, if the leaves will ever return to the trees, if I will ever catch my breath properly. March is when I question all of my life's decisions, sure that somehow I'm getting it all wrong.
But it isn't me. It's March.
Teaching is a joy for me: I know I'm good at it, and I love my kids, and (mostly) they love me back. My test scores are good (or even great). I love creating curriculum (currently, we're completing a ChatGPT unit - the skill we're working towards is a synthesis essay, and I'm working hard at creating conteporary, relevant, meaningful connections for the kids). But so many of my kids have horrific mental health struggles, and they seem to have lost their joy and zest for living. Some are just apathetic - they've given up even at their tender ages. They simply do not see the point of trying anymore, so they go through the motions, eager to get back to their bedrooms where they can zone out with screens. Some of them are rats on treadmills in some awful social experiment to see how much they can fit into their lives to be successful, striving ever harder, faster, longer to reach a life that they cannot see.
On Friday some students hung out in my room after doing some make up work, and as we were all packing up for the weekend I asked them their plans. Their affect didn't alter - no brightening, no lifting - as they told me, "Nothing." They had homework, SAT practice. I pushed them for more: the weather forecast was for sun! In Seattle! On a weekend! In MARCH! Still nothing. I said, "But you could meet a friend for coffee at an outdoor café, or have a picnic at a park, or go to the lake... and don't teenagers do things like go to the movies, or roller skating (I knew that last one was a stretch but I said it anyway), or have friends over for a sleepover?"
They looked at me with sad eyes. "That was for middle school," they told me.
They are 16-17 years old and they are bone weary, and they don't see any way out.
Now, I know it isn't every kid, but it's a LOT of kids. And it hits me in the gut. There they are, so filled with potential for things I probably can't even imagine... and they are deep in a societal malaise for which they see no end.
And me. Where do I fit in to that vision of society, of teaching, of my own life?
***
Luckily. something in me has always been determined to find the joy in my life, even when it seemed invisible. It's what made me know - deep in my bones - that I wanted an education for myself, even when my parents didn't see the value in it. It's what kept me fighting through cancer, believing that if I could just make it one more day, that somehow I'd connect to joy again. It's what gave me the courage to divorce, knowing that this was not how I was meant to live, and that a better life awaited if I'd just have the courage to reach for it.
Lately, that joy has seemed dimmer for me, too. Work has unending demands, and I am so damned tired at the end of the day. I'm still adjusting to the emptiness of an empty nest, and the newfound quiet of my evenings at home. (Dinner for one has no ceremony to it, no shared pleasures.) I'm a decade past divorce, no partner possibilities at the moment, wondering if it's time to admit that this is how it will remain for me.
And my body is a stranger. My shape has shifted, my proportions changing not only in my waist and hips but also in my face, my hair. Some of it is size - this thickening I feel in my middle is harder and harder to fight - but some of it is that older women and younger women are simply not meant to inhabit the same shapes, and there is no confusing me as youthful. If I am not youthful, and I'm not partnered, but I'm also not a retiree or a grandmother, then... who am I? What is my role?
Interesting questions. If think about them in the right way, they're filled with possibility and redefinition and the possibility of new powers. But if I see them in the shadows, they might swallow me up, embracing me in a darkness that is cold and clammy, feverish yet chilling.
***
Lately, I find myself just holding on, falling into worn grooves of patterns, plodding one foot after the other, too tired to be innovative, excited, or powerful.
But just as my lilac tree has tight buds of green leaves at the ends of bare branches outside my living room window - the potential utterly obvious, annual, and guaranteed - and just as daylight savings has forced a shift in our waking hours the brings daylight to evenings, I'm ready to shake myself up a little. I'm tired of winter. I'm bored of my boredom. And I just refuse - refuse - to gray out.
Make no mistake, my hair is not the dark glossy waves of my 20s and 30s. Those days are behind me. But nor do submit to a flat gray. I have a bolt of silver - my stripe - streaking through my hair on one side. What if I call it silver, not gray? What if it's not a fading out, but a lightening strike?
Stubborn gladness (Jack Gilbert's line, not my own, but the words ring true in my life). Even when it's not called for. Especially when it's not called for.
***
It seems to me that the smallest, simplest things are usually the most life altering.
Sleep.
Food.
Exercise.
Nature.
Books.
Deciding.
***
I won't bore you - or myself - by listing how I can do a better job with most of that list. We all know the drill about the importance of sleep hygiene and healthy food, blah blah blah. I need to work on all of the above, putting my phone away.
But today I'm thinking about deciding.
What if I built one thing into my life each day for the sake of joy?
What if I intentionally planned out something daily with the purpose of purpose in my life? What would that look like?
I'm not a fool. I can't cure cancer, end climate change, or head to the Eiffel Tower just because I want some fun and meaning. I'm thinking much, much smaller than that.
What if, at the end of a long day, I used Grandpa's tea pot (the one he gifted me in my early 20s because "every young lady needs a bone china tea pot"), and re-read a few pages of Jane Austen, because I love it?
What if I stopped at the beach on my way home from work to sit on a log and see if my seal was nearby?
What if I wrote real letters to friends, pulling down the lid to the secretary, grabbing a favorite pen, and planning the words of caring and connection?
What if I plugged my phone in and walked away - what would I do with that time?
What if I forgot to watch TV for a month? What would I do instead?
What if I planned picnics, day trips, museum visits?
What if I - once again - became a hiker, my pack in a constant state of updating, filled with sandwiches and trail mix, my boots pulled out of hiding and put to use?
What if I explored different parks around the city, taking advantage of longer days?
What if I made more room for these things, which give me joy? And what if that joy bubbled out of me in other ways, into work, and relationships?
***
March is halfway done, but this is my plan:
Once a day, I'm going to do something joyful. I'm going to find a moment that is filled with beauty for beauty's sake. Deep relaxation that contains true rest. A burst of energy that reminds me of bolts of silver, not gray. Meaningful connection with those I care about, and solitude that is the opposite of loneliness.
I'll tell you about it here. And let's see if it makes a difference.
Because I am not meant to plod along in a worn out groove, walking in circles and feeling weary. Sure, life is filled with chores and problems and long hours at work and health struggles and... well, you know. But I insist - INSIST! - that there is room for joy. For daily doses of peace and fulfillment, for wonder at the beauty of life and the possibilities it contains.
***
Day 1: Yesterday. I grabbed the French market basket that Tessa gave me a few years ago (still such a favorite, so perfectly designed), and filled it with a thermos of herbal tea and the two little enamel mugs from Cinque Terre, the sandwiches Tessa purchased at Bakery Nouveau, books, and a picnic blanket (cheery blue and white fleece stripes on one side, and a waterproof backing on the other). We went to Lowman Beach, just a mile from home, and laid it out in the grass. The park was full of people, mostly families with little kids, because the sky was blue and the air was warm and - bliss of bliss - we didn't even need to wear coats. Tessa chatted about her life and we watched our seal (the one who hangs out there year round) swimming in the sunlight, her wet fur gleaming as if reflective. We read, the sun on our skin. We ate the good food. We lingered for two or more hours on a Saturday afternoon, not needing to go anywhere, not needing to do anything else.
It was glorious.
A Saturday afternoon needs to have room for two hours like this. Books from the used bookstore, sandwiches, herbal tea, a blanket, a place near home. This is not too much to ask for.
Everyone deserves that. And I'm better for having done it.
Today I am looking forward to the farmer's market, brunch, maybe some more reading. I need to work, too. And I need to prep for the week. I did my laundry on Thursday so that when I picked up Tessa from school she'd be able to take over the laundry room (and take over she did - wowza that kid hasn't done laundry in ages, and the machines will be busy for some time!). Today will have less leisure than yesterday, and Monday even less.
But the sadness in my students reminded me that I've got my own sadness, and I just absolutely refuse to embrace that sadness. I am raging against the dying of the light, sure that if I do so the light will not die. It's not time for that (and it's certainly not time for 17 year olds to let the light die!).
I'm pretty sure that if I do this right, not only will my lives shift, but theirs will, too. Are the adults in their lives showing them how to have joy?
Daily joy. Real, meaningful joy. Not "should" but because I choose it. Stubbornly, and despite the odds.
Let's see what today brings.
What do you do for joy? Do you embrace joy daily? How? What are your ideas for me, for practical (I don't want to spend money, and nor do I have time for hours daily) yet wonderful ways to reconnect with the meaning of life?
