August 08, 2006
Writing prompt: Joy (for me) is what makes life worth living. What brings you joy? Talk about the small, day-to-day happinesses or the really big ones. Go into some detail. I know it's still summer, but no short answers.
It brings me joy to fall asleep during a long road trip, slouched in the passenger seat while Calvin drives. This may seem like a very strange thing, but to me it's the epitome of feeling safe and cared for. I don't have to watch where we're going. I don't have to put my foot through the floorboards while hitting the imaginary break pedal. I can count on Calvin to get us to our destination safely. I can fall asleep knowing I'm taken care of.
The exact right song and the exact right moment is another of life's little joys. This happens more frequently now that I have an iPod. For instance, "Steal My Sunshine" by Len is playing right now. "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West was on a second ago. And "Sunday Mornings" by Maroon 5 is on queue. For the most part, I have a little, "Oh, cool!" moment when a new song comes on. Like a cool radio station plugged into my brain. Which is, well, duh. I wouldn't put a song I didn't like on my iPod.
The other morning Calvin woke me up by tickling my back and bringing me a cup of coffee. It is an absolute joy to wake up to a gentle caress and a life-giving beverage, rather than the "ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK" of the alarm.
It's a joy to watch our various lizards doing what they do in their little environments. I like taking good care of them. I enjoy finding new greens and veggies that Cheeto likes. I like to soak him and play with him in the bathtub. We have a game where I rest my hand on the bottom of the tub, filled with about two inches of water, then "plunk plunk plunk" with my index finger. He'll come, in his weird little hybrid swim/crawl, and try to climb up on my hand. Which I move at the last second, for him to chase. With the water dragons, when they're in the tub I yell "tsunami!" and slosh the water around to make little waves. They'll half swim, half run on their hind legs with their tail for stability, headed toward my arm. Sometimes I let them climb up, sometimes I hover my arm over the tub so that they try to jump for it and splash back down into the water. On the way back from the tub to their vivarium, one of them always sits on my head and jumps from there to its perch when I reach the cage. I watched the snake, Kali (Callie? I don't know how Marie spells it), eat a small rat the other day. It was simultaneously disgusting and fascinating in a Discovery Channel kind of way. It took her a good ten minutes to completely swallow the thing, with the last two minutes sucking the tail in like a piece of wayward spaghetti. Eee-yeeew.
The definition of joy is holding one, two, or all three of my grandsons while we watch TV. Usually, Devlin snuggles in my lap and Robert leans into my side with my arm around him. Sometimes they fall asleep that way. I love how little Roman stares up at me while I feed him his bottle. These little beings that look toward Lilly, Michael, Calvin, Marie, and me to take care of them. Absolute trust that all is right in their world and they have a bunch of people who love them. Just the way it's supposed to be.
Now that I'm on this very restrictive diet, when I do "misbehave" with a carefully chosen beverage or food item, the joy that I experience in said item's consumption is much more than it ever was. A beer is like honey from the benevolent gods of sublime pleasure. The pizza I had about a week ago was the most wonderful thing I'd eaten to that date. And the gelatto I got with a girlfriend earlier this week was practically orgasmic.
The beginning piano chords of "On the Dark Side" by Eddie and the Cruisers. That's joy right there.
It's a joy to know that I could keep on going with the items that bring me joy in my life, for another couple of thousand words or another couple of hundred entries. There is much more in my life that brings me joy than that brings me pain. I am very lucky in that. It's the significant and acknowledged joy that I find in "the little things" that save my sanity, most days.
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