Word of the Year: Joy 12: Remembrances

 

A little rock reservoir, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. May 2016.

A few years ago, I caught myself remembering a vivid experience. The experience - a particularly exuberant dance move with a partner - had been unexpected and joyful. Exultant! I remembered clearly how I'd felt during that dance move - delightfully surprised in the way of a child seeing snow for the first time. Think the final lift scene from Dirty Dancing.

Catching myself remembering those few moments, and observing the pleasure that the act of remembering gave to me - it was the first time I understood that remembrances are like water in a reservoir, a source I can drink from to replenish my spirit.

Death took three people in my circles this year. 

My mother.

A friend.

An aunt, unexpectedly, only a week after my mother's funeral.

 

Bulb in leaves. St. Louis, Missouri. December 2007.

It's odd to think that death can bring forth thoughts of joy. But I catch myself remembering pleasurable moments with lost ones, usually prompted by a sensory trigger. A snatch of music. The ticking of a clock. A pair of earrings. A color reminiscent of homemade butterscotch pudding. The creaking of a kitchen cabinet door. A small pair of scissors. An old television show. These memories make me smile, gladdened for the pleasure they give me today and gladdened for having had the original experiences with the family or friends who have died. 

Challenges overcome

As I walked home from downtown Mobile on a recent night, I remembered a time when I, a single parent of a very young child, was terribly poor. I hadn't thought of those years in decades, but as I walked home, the memories came to me of what I'd accomplished since then.

The trigger was a Head Start booth at Mobile's Lighting of the Christmas Tree event, which I'd just attended. Head Start was a marvelous resource for my young one (and me) during a time of great need for us. Remembering that era, I went to deep appreciation of my maternal grandmother, May, who - for several years, as I walked through that desert - sent me a $25 check each month, along with a brief note. In my financial poverty, that $25 check made a meaningful difference to me and my child. 

As I walked home, remembering that time, I felt so .... proud .... of what I'd achieved since then, and the richness of the experiences that followed, both the exuberant and the sad. 

I felt joyful. 

 

The compilation of this year's joy

Joy 1: Word of the Year: Joy

Joy 2: Music

Joy 3: Surprise Vista

Joy 4: Happy, Joyous, and Free

Joy 5: The Science of Joy, Interrupted

Joy 6: Color

Joy 7: Birdsong

Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys

Joy 9: A Tomato and Onion Sandwich

Joy 10: Let in Light

Joy 11: Scentsuality

 

Word of the Year: Joy 11: Scentsuality

 

Wild honey nectar candle. Source: DW Home

Mmmmmm, the sensual joy of fragrance.

To borrow from a past post, there are so many aromatic characters:

• Spicy
• Floral
• Citrusy
• Tangy
• Sweet
• Sour
• Musky
• Crisp
• Clean
• Pungent
• Light
• Sharp
• Fishy
• Metallic
• Herbal
• Earthy
• Moldy
• Musty
• Buttery
• Nutty
• Rotting
• Barnyard 
• Minty

Below are scents that have delighted me in this time of COVID, inviting me to 

breathe deeply, 

to dwell in the moment I'm in.

• Wild honey nectar candle
• Rosemary needles captured in the wilds of residential Birmingham and Las Cruces, which I plucked, inhaled deeply of, and bit into.

 

Rosemary collected from across the street. Birmingham, Alabama. November 2020.

• Fresh basil growing on my windowsill

 

Basil growing in my kitchen. Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

• Sentimental, vintage scent of White Shoulders, an enormous bottle of which I stumbled upon in a friend's closet, who had received it as a gift, and which she re-gifted to me. The fragrance is light and pretty. In a pandemic, anointing oneself with a spray of pretty is a sweet joy.
• Community Coffee's Pecan Praline flavored coffee, mmm, delicious smell. It also reminds me of a time I shared with my mother, when I took her for a pre- or post-op check with an opthmalogist. We had a coffee together in the medical building's little breakfast bar, chatting about nothing in particular, but enjoying the time together. Pecan praline-flavored coffee was on tap that morning.
• Super-fishy essence of fish sauce, anchovies, sardines. Their aggressive umaminess brings forth a perverse pleasure in the coupling of revulsion and attraction. Somehow, their aroma smacks my senses in a way that reminds me: I am alive. As they were, once, and it is as if I smell their essence of both death and life. The joy does not come from any pleasure in their demise. It comes from a reminder to me that I am alive in this moment. And that I'd better goshdarn notice that, appreciate it, and be in it. 
  

 

Small fish at market. Batumi, Caucasus Georgia. April 2012.

 

Related posts

2020: Tucson, AZ: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 10: Creature Comforts: Smells

2018: St. Louis: For the Senses: Seafood City

2016: Colorado: Boulder: The Scentsual

2013: On Mangoes

 

Joys so far this year

Joy 1: Word of the Year: Joy

Joy 2: Music

Joy 3: Surprise Vista

Joy 4: Happy, Joyous, and Free

Joy 5: The Science of Joy, Interrupted

Joy 6: Color

Joy 7: Birdsong

Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys

Joy 9: A Tomato and Onion Sandwich

Joy 10: Let in Light

 

 

Word of the Year: Joy 10: Let in Light

 

 

Leaf in light. UTEP campus, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

 

A morning ritual sends a small joy to my soul.

I open the wide slats of my white window blinds, push the blinds up to the window tops, and let in the light of the day. 

My morning ritual also connects me to my mother's morning ritual. She had white, wood window shutters, which she, too, opened each morning, in her bedroom, in her living room, in her dining room, in her tiny kitchen. This daily connection with her pleases me.

Light through Carol's living room windows. January 2011.

Feel the light

Morning light through kitchen window. Ferguson, Missouri. March 2018.

Morning light in my Rustavi, Georgia (Caucasus) window. July 2011.

Light through my living room window in Opelousas, Louisiana. March 2015.

Light through my El Paso kitchen window. October 2016.

Light through my living room windows in Ferguson, Missouri. April 2018.

Light through the dining room window in my rooted house. Featuring Princess. May 2007.

 

Joys so far this year

Joy 1: Word of the Year: Joy

Joy 2: Music

Joy 3: Surprise Vista

Joy 4: Happy, Joyous, and Free

Joy 5: The Science of Joy, Interrupted

Joy 6: Color

Joy 7: Birdsong

Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys

Joy 9: A Tomato and Onion Sandwich

 

 

Word of the Year: Joy 9: A Tomato and Onion Sandwich

Tomato and sweet onion sandwich. August 2021.

 

Is there not something joyful about a simple tomato and onion sandwich? 

Especially if the tomato is from a home garden. 

My descendant does not like tomatoes, but she has them in her garden. I was the lucky recipient of a day's harvest. 

When an earthy, red tomato rests momentarily on your tongue, it is the warmth of a summer afternoon sun that rests there. This is mighty fine. 

Add the crunch of a sweet onion, the soothing scratch of toasted bread, and the black pepper kick, well, now you've got some joy. 

 

Related posts

• September 2011: An Evening in Tsalaskuri, Georgia 
• December 2018: Mexico City: My Daily Eats

 

Word of the Year: Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys

 

Parrots, Kansas City Zoo, Missouri. September 2018.

 

In Island, by Aldous Huxley, mynahs sound a chorus throughout the land. The birds' refrain consists of two messages: 

Attention! 

Here and now, boys, here and now! 

 

Character Susila MacPhail explains:

 'That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.'"

When I catch myself in a fruitless exercise of rewriting my past or fretting about a future, I say aloud: Here and now, boys, here and now! 

Look around you, girl. Live where you be now. 

It is inside moments, even in fearful times, where I can see joy.

If I choose. 

Word of the Year: Joy 7: Birdsong

 

Mockingbird by Andy Morffew.

 

Mockingbirds may be my muse. 

(Or maybe I just like that alliteration.) 

The singing of birds bring joy. 

There is joy in the musicality.

There is joy in the gift of hearing. 

There is joy in that the singing is simply present - we don't have to hunt for it, find that right channel, that right app, that right song, download it, look at a screen for it, plug it in, recharge it, or venmo it. 

No, the birdsong is for the birds; our bystander enjoyment of their conversations is a serendipitous side effect.

A reason I chose my Opelousas apartment back in 2015 was that, just outside a living room window was a tree, and on that tree was a melodic mockingbird. 

 

And there were the conversational tunes from the mockingbird outside my bedroom window in Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia. 

 

 

In Birmingham, Alabama, which I left only a few days ago, there was a pair of mockingbirds in the front yard outside my living room windows, quite talkative, though not as melodic as their kin in Louisiana or Caucasus Georgia. They seemed more interested in succinctly pronouncing their claim to the yard in case squirrels or other birds had eyes for any of the juicy menu items the yard offered.

But I am polyamorous when it comes to birds and their songs. 

The mourning doves' low talking in Alamogordo, New Mexico, made for an audio wallpaper at home:

• Alamogordo: White-Winged Doves
• Alamogordo: Nesting Doves
• Alamogordo: The Silence of the Doves

 (Not that I didn't sometimes wish the doves weren't quite so chattery.)

 In COVID's early days, I sometimes surrendered to the joy of birdsongs gathered by kind souls, such as these:

• One hour: Morning Bird Song
• Two hours: Forest Birdsong
• Three hours: Bird Sounds

 

Listening to these birdsongs from my past writings remind me that even in times of profound sorrow or fear or uncertainty, one can feel moments of joy. 

We can immerse ourselves in birdsong, like a restorative soak in a bath.

 

Word of the Year: Joy 6: Color

 

Colorful coverlet, Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

 

At the thrift store, a cotton coverlet called to me from atop sedimentary layers of cloth.

The colors!

Sweet 'n juicy cantaloupe, butterscotch hard candy, periwinkle blossoms, hot-skinned August tomatoes.

My spirit soaked 'em up like a parched plant does water.

I felt deeply satisfied. Joyful. I even sighed, I think.

I brought the coverlet home. I shook it out, let it fall floaty-like onto my airbed, and smoothed my hand over the slightly nubby surface. I'm pretty sure I sighed again. These colors, like a dawn that cracks a crevice of red-orange-yellow light from behind the dark.

A few weeks later, I saw a flash of a young woman on the street in a summer dress, ostentatiously, outrageously, loudly, flowery colorful. So fresh! Ah! 

And then, and then ...... when I stepped into a Target, I saw more splashy, happy, joyful colors!  A produce stand of a summer's first fruits. 

 

Colorful summer dresses at Target. Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

Colorful summer dresses at Target. Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

Colorful summer dresses at Target. Birmingham, Alabama. May 2021.

The colors bring hope that the end of a long sepia COVID winter is coming. They bring joy.

 

 

 

Word of the Year: Joy 5: The Science of Joy, Interrupted

Flower yellow and blue, Lafayette, Louisiana. January 2014.

 

 

I'm glad some folks study joy. 

I started to write this post on what science has to say on joy. 

But I got bogged down in my hunt for interesting research on joy.

In fact, the exercise became joyless. 

So, I say, fuck it. 

Which brings me a nano-flare of joy right there.

To fan that tiny flame, I'm just going to take a moment here ...................... and muster up some joy ........... by looking at the greenery outside my window and listening to the chatty birds outside. 

There we go now. 

So as not to let my preliminary efforts go to waste, read on if you wish:

From Grotto Network (a Catholic medium designed for Catholic millennials): How to Find Joy According to Science:

"The American Psychological Association (APA) defines joy as 'a feeling of extreme gladness, delight, or exaltation of the spirit arising from a sense of well-being or satisfaction.'”

 

From the charming Badges For All: The Science of Joy and Happiness (for a Joy Seeker badge!)

 ... which applies a definition of joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee: "[Joy is an] 'intense, momentary experience of positive emotion.'"

 

In her 2017 abstract, Refining Research on Joy, Dr. Lynn Underwood proposed how scientists might refine the terms they use in reference to joy. An excerpt: 

To find out about joy using the tools of scientific research we must identify what

connects joy of all kinds for many people, something that comes under the wide umbrella of

joy, in order to find some common features .....The kinds of joy that happen

together with sorrow differ from unmixed joy. Variations in intensity may describe joy of

very different kinds. Quiet joy that looks more like deep contentment might be very different

from ecstatic joy. Joy that occurs with others, either with other people or a divine other, may seem quite distinct. ... And each of us is temperamentally different. Some of us

experience the most profound joy in solitude, some of us when with others. Some of us find

frequent calm joy, others have frequent highs in experiences of joy. For some joy is

inextricably linked to a sense of the transcendent, for others there is no awareness of

transcendence in their experiences. The words used to tap into this need to give space for all of these kinds of joy. 

Word of the Year 2021: Joy 4: Happy, Joyous, and Free

 

A happy couple in Nazret, Ethiopia. September, 2006.

 

We are not a glum lot

I'm not an alcoholic, but I am in a 12-step fellowship that uses the Alcoholic Anonymous Big Book. In that Big Book are some of my favorite phrases: 

But we aren’t a glum lot.  ... We absolutely insist on enjoying life.  We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world’s troubles on our shoulders. ...  So we think cheerfulness and laughter make for use­fulness.  

We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.

This, too, shall pass

In the 12-step universe there is a slogan we lean on when we encounter one of life's storms: This, too, shall pass. 

But the slogan also applies to sunny days, when everything seems to go right. Because they, too, shall pass. 

So I'd better savor the flavor of today's sweet air.

 

 

On joy so far

• Joy 1: What is it?
  
• Joy 2: Music
• Joy 3: Surprise Vista 
  

 

 

Word of the Year 2021: Joy 3: Surprise Vista

When I think of times I've felt joy, invariably I think of the first time I saw this, and of each time afterward that I saw it: 

 

Highway 380 between San Antonio and Carrizozo, New Mexico. November 2012.

I gasped at the surprise of the drop, the opening up, the vastness, the mountain-range frame of this massive painting.

My joy - maybe that of a bird when she catches an air current that lifts her up, effortlessly, and she soars.

 

Photo: John Comisky/Audubon Photography Awards, found here.

 
 

On joy so far

• Joy 1: What is it?
  
• Joy 2: Music
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Word of the Year 2021: Joy 2: Music

 

Viva Las Vegas in El Paso, Texas. July 2017.

 

"I'm so happy!!!!" is what the guy exclaimed to the universe, expressing the joy we all felt in that small mechanic's garage at the 2013 Lupus Chili Fest, where Todd Day Wait and the Pigpen and we, the audience, melded our energies into something transcendent.

 

Music brings joy. 

Music literally lights up our brains. Your Brain on Music offers cool graphics on "how music impacts brain function and human behavior, including by reducing stress, pain and symptoms of depression as well as improving cognitive and motor skills, spatial-temporal learning and neurogenesis, which is the brain’s ability to produce neurons." 

The Cat Stevens (Yusuf) song, Miles From Nowhere, is my joyful road song. To say it lifts my spirit is a figurative cliche, but it occurs to me now that it probably really does lift whatever chemical-electrical operations I've got going on upstairs.

 

 

I have a feel good playlist. It includes my power songs and even my fuck you songs, the latter also producing a satisfying, perverse joy. I'm not a saint. 

Some other folks' happy playlists

1. Jennifer Lee's Ultimate Happy Playlist
2. USA Today's 100 Songs to Help Lift Your Spirits During a Pandemic
3. Amr Salama's Songs That Will Instantly Put You in a Good Mo

It is good to make a joyful noise.

Word of the Year 2021: Joy

My newborn. Some decades ago.

Joy alights on us for an instant, an hour, maybe a day. 

A sweet ambush of fragrance from a flowering tree

A vista that grabs your breath

A communal dance, thrumming with a primordial beat

A companionable walk with a loved one, arms entwined 

The slow-motion grace of a heron gliding over a long ribbon of water

A narcotic rush of soaring energy that arcs from your spirit to another's - that first time you lock eyes with your newborn - or that first moment you discover - surprise! - you are in love with a partner

No matter what else might be happening - to me, to the people in my circles, or around the world - I can watch out for moments of joy. 

 I can gobble them up guilt-free, for otherwise, they will go to waste, and that would be a sin. 

 

I like these quotes that touch on joy

Attention! Here and now, boys, here and now.  From Island, by Aldous Huxley

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. By William Butler Yeats

Make a joyful noise upon the Lord ... From the Old Testament of the Bible, which I apply enthusiastically to the joys of dance and music

We have been speaking to you of serious, sometimes tragic things. We have been dealing with alcohol in its worst  aspect.  But  we  aren’t  a  glum  lot.  If  newcomers  could see no joy or fun in our existence, they wouldn’t want  it.  We  absolutely  insist  on  enjoying  life. From the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book

This, too, shall pass. A 12-step slogan that applies not only to bad things that are happening, but to good things that are happening, too. So when something joyful appears, I need to savor it like a stunning sunset, as it is transitory. 

Music that gives me joy

Spring, in Vivaldi's Four Seasons, does something to my brain chemistry. It induces joy. 

Here is a performance produced by Voices of Music, featuring Alana Youssefian.

 

 

 

 

 

Reserving My Word for 2021: Joy

 

 

 

Benson Sculpture Garden, Colorado. May 2016.

 

As I write this, the outcome of the 2020 election is unknown. 

Regardless of how it turns out, my 2021 word for the year will be joy. 

Although I have a good life (and feel lucky for it), and am generally happy, the past several years have been so full of turmoil domestically and abroad, and in my personal circles, it has brought my emotional reserves low. 

So 2021 (actually, I’ve already started) will be one in which I intentionally engage in the practices that I know (or that might) bring me joy. 

Another way of putting this is: I have made a decision to feel joyful, and it is incumbent upon me to take the actions necessary to execute on that decision. 

Listening to beautiful music while I prepare a meal is a simple example. 

Learning something new, like tennis, is another. 

Lighting my salted caramel candle and breathing in its aroma is another. 

As is deepening the relationships I have with people I care about. 

Sharing some of what I’ve got with others.