Five Things from Here - Joy Edition

Perceiving, Feeling, Manifesting Joy

“Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

Here’s what’s on repeat around here:

One of my favorite exercises when I want to write but do not have the words or even the place to start is to pick one thing and then examine it from all five senses, turning it over and over and peering at it from a million different angles until the words come - they always come and they are always on time, even if my impatient heart wants them a bit sooner.

I thought about what I wanted to say to you all week and nothing came of it. Well, that is a lie, what I mean is nothing tangible and real enough that I could sit and write about for my preconceived notion of a valid length of time - 1000 words are no more special than 250 and yet, I will not let myself send the shorter notes. Maybe future Tazhi will have the required confidence to push go on the smaller missives and believe that they are just as valid as the longer ones, but today is not that day and all I had to show for the week’s searching was a few sentence fragments and a list of ideas but nothing polished enough that I could work on distilling down into something meaningful to share.

So I went back to basics. Five things from here, from right now. Five things about joy - elusive, delightful, tangible joy - to help me see it, and feel it, and to buoy me in the joyless moments we so often find ourselves in. (We are living in a world where genocide is sandwiched between consumerism and election despair and we are fed this meal day in and day out until the grief has filled our bellies to capacity and it is clawing its way up our throat and out our sinuses, out our eyes - I wake and I think of Gaza, I sleep and I think of Gaza -  and is it any wonder that joy is both the most necessary yet fleeting of companions and is it any wonder that finding it has become an act of rebellion?) I hope this act, this delight in the mundane, helps you find joy wherever you are, and inspires you to create it wherever you can.

Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash

Five Things.

1. Joy looks like the sunlight streaming in through the windows, the way it lights up everything in the room, from Joshua’s sleeping silhouette to Minerva perched on the dresser, watching the pigeons as they fly past the window and the squirrels crawling through the trees. Joy looks like the snow on the ground before its become muddied by a thousand footprints, the white flakes sticking to the dead branches catching the dawn rays filtering through, the hopscotch game sketched out on the concrete in front of the school that has lay unattended in the deep frost, still pristine and a rainbow on the sidewalk. Joy looks like the tiny ways we are still making this apartment a home, like finally doing the work of cleaning and decluttering, like taking out the recycling so there is space to hang the framed pictures and wall hangings, like placing artificial plants everywhere since the felines insist on eating all of the houseplants, like candles burning in every room, like the endless supply of raw wool drying on the sweater mats near the radiator and yarn tumbling out of all the corners.

2. Joy smells like a cup of chai tea brewed by hands that love me, sweetened just so in my favorite mug on the nights I am wearing someone else’s skin - Greylyn’s these days and she is quickly becoming my favorite - and taking a chance on everything, trusting the dice to hold it all together. Joy smells like the incense cones burning in the ceramic bowls gifted to me by a dear friend, the smoke wafting up to the ceiling and perfuming the space around us. Joy smells like the sandalwood deodorant Joshua wears that I instantly hated and then came to associate with all good things, like him coming home and him sneaking up for kisses in the kitchen. Sometimes I get a whiff of sandalwood in the busy Brooklyn streets and it instantly puts a smile on my face.

3. Joy feels like strong hands holding me close, holding on as I wash the dishes, tighter than tight during the necessary chores, keeping me grounded in the twilight hours as I sleep. With every hug, every squeeze, every touch as he brushes past, he says “I love you,” and “I need you,” and “I’m here,” and my heart never fails to respond in time. Joy feels like the weighted blanket around my body in the evening hours, the warmth of the cocoon I build around myself as I prepare for sleep, the texture of the comforter around my shoulders and my cheeks. Joy feels like the spray of the shower in the predawn hours, the mist rising to fill the bathroom and warm me from the outside in. Joy feels like the heft of yarn wrapped around my fingers as I work through my latest pattern, wrapping the yarn around needles in an endless cycle of pick up stitch, wrap and drop. Joy feels like picking open locks of unprocessed fleece, like running the crimp between my fingers as I open the tips and butts, like the way it flies through my fingers as it loads onto the bobbin.

4. Joy sounds like Isaac’s babbles while he plays with his Paw Patrol truck, like the sweet way he says “Help me,” when he realizes the task is too big for his body, the way he asks for “You’re Welcome” when he wants to watch Moana, the way he says “all done” when he wants to go back to his own thing. Joy sounds like Noah’s patient teaching, like him reading Eric Carle to himself and his brothers, like the peal of his laughter when he’s throwing snow around. Joy sounds like Minerva’s purrs as she crawls into our laps, relentless in her affection of us, head butting our hands incessantly until we make space for her beneath the blanket and she can crawl in under with us. Joy sounds like the Epic Soundtrack on repeat, like Noah Kahan, and like rediscovering A Fine Frenzy, like the whoosh of the carder as it spins and turns the wool, like the brush of the tines of the burnishing brush against the cloth.

5. Joy tastes like a cup of coffee brewed by one of the other nurses on the team and pressed into my hands without me even asking when I needed a pick me up the most (joy tastes like being known). Joy tastes like an ice cold Arizona green tea, not because I am especially partial to them but because he remembers to grab one for me every time he goes to the deli - Joshua is very good at saying “I love you,” and “I’m thinking of you,” in a million little ways that don’t require words. Joy tastes like the pile of candy canes we hid in the kitchen and then lost, finding again after a few weeks and then hiding in a new place so they last and last.

• A new fiber YouTube channel I discovered that is a real delight.

• I am obsessed with Nathalie Haynes and her podcast with BBC is excellent if you love Greek mythology.

• I am new to Mary Oliver's work her episode of On Being feels like required listening.

How is joy manifesting for you these days? What does it look like, sounds like, taste like, feel like, smell like?

Yours in starlight and joy,

Tazhi

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Tangles and Starlight is a weekly-ish newsletter where I leave my heart on the page in the hopes that you will pick it up and meet me with your own. Please feel free to share the bits of it that resonate and use that magic to fuel your own awe filled explorations. It is a joy to be human alongside with you - thank you for reading and for being here. If you enjoyed this, please consider subscribing and sticking around.