Ode to Joy

My girlfriend Barb over at So The Thing Is did this really incredible meme, that she made up her own bad self today, and I think she coined a term in the process, "Joy Rush." She challenged us, her readers, to step up and tell the world what gives them their own special little rushes of joy, those moments that make your skin tingle with happiness, or at a moments notice steal your breath away. So I'm going to start my list with the one thing that makes the most sense in this situation.

1. Barb. (smiles) No, I'm not buttering her up for a copy of her book. I already have one thank you very much, and it's autographed ;). You know I read approximately seven billion blogs regularly, but Barb's is special to me. No, wait, BARB is special to me. One Christmas time I was looking for some thing about motherhood and the spirit of Christmas. I was frustrated because I wasn't finding what I was looking for (and lo these many years later, I'll be danged if I can't remember why I was looking for it) when I stumbled across her website and the columns she was writing about her experiences being a mom, and I read this column. Barb and I connected that day in a very meaningful way and she didn't even know I existed. I was a silent adoring fan of hers until she started blogging, and I started commenting. I learned quickly that Barb and I have amazing and funny things in common that almost make me cry when I see them. Today was just one more day for my darling amazing friend to hold up a mirror to me to remind me what I like not only about her, but about myself. In her own post on joy she posted a Youtube video of one of my all time favorite bands playing one of my all time favorite songs. And it gives me such a Joy Rush to share so much with such an amazing woman.

2. Expanding upon that theme, there is this amazing Joy Rush upon looking into the faces of the people I call friends. Occasionally I have that moment that I feel like I should pinch myself, because honestly, how did I get so lucky? Not only is there assortment of amazing and interesting people, from my talented theatre and music friends to the activists and educators and writers and public servants and healers...not to mention the breath taking mamas, but they are just fine people. They are the people who really understand what we talk about in my church, the spirit of life. And I am eternally awed and grateful to be able to call these amazing souls friends.

3. The humor that boils down deep inside the fresh bright little soul that is, Elyas. Tonight as I washed his hair he turned his head at just the wrong moment and ended up completely doused at my hand. He rose up out of the water like a dunked cat sputtering and I lifted a towel to his face...as he pushed his hair up off his little glistening face he locked eyes with me, shaking his head seriously. "I'm sorry, you're fired, man." Then we both laughed until it hurt. He is a person who just glows with good humor. And lucky me, I get to be his mama. Total Joy Rush.

4. If there is a word that could describe my eldest child, it would be tenacity. There are days when you watch this kid dig his heels in to master a skill, read a book, climb a tree, or catch a bug...well he's going to do it. But do you know what really gives me the big Joy Rush? I learn from that tenacity every single day. It boggles my mind that this living breathing smart-as-all-get-out person who is teaching me came from my body into this world. It gives me goose bumps.

5. Well Barb, as I mentioned, posted a video, so I'm going to as well. I know I've told people I really don't like country music, heck I've even defended it in goofy arguments. But Lyle Lovett simply can't be a country musician because, because, well...he's just too cool. And there's that hair. But you see this song gives me a Joy Rush...


I don't know if you have any bears in your life, I don't know if any one's ever seen the bear in you...but if you smile like I do when Lyle reminds us "they just don't come no better than a bear." You know why this song is a Joy Rush for me. I have some seriously wonderful bears that I like to lunch with, and wow it awes me that someone gets it.


6. Daisies. Planting daisies. Looking at daisies, touching them. They fill up a special little corner of my heart.

7. Sometimes I worry that I talk too much about being divorced, that people think I'm obsessing over something negative, but here is a little special secret, just between me, you and the internets. It isn't an obsession with the death of my marriage...it is an obsession with the person I subsequently discovered in my solitude, the woman I found hiding out waiting to shine. I hope it doesn't sound ego-centric, but she totally gives me a Joy Rush. She makes me cry sometimes because I waited so damn long to find her.

8. The way my Scottish boss says my name, the way it was intended to be pronounced.

9.


This face. How can that not make you happy?


There are maybe a million moments every day that have the potential to be a Joy Rush, if only we choose to open ourselves up to them. Maybe the biggest Joy Rush is just slowing down long enough to just catch them as they fly through our fingers. Thanks for reminding me to open my hands, Barb.

If you'd like to, tell me what kinds of Joy Rushes you've been catching lately. I'm sure it will give me another one...totally contagious, this is.