“Hi, Diane. This is Dad.”
Just his voice. Gruff. Sentences always 3 or 4 words long. How are you? Be here by 4? What is the address? Are you happy? He didn’t sound stilted – just distracted? Or thinking through the next thought. Very distinct pattern, though.
I had been clearing voicemail on my cell phone. 5 new and 25 saved messages. Saved, for the most part, were messages that I had intended to delete, but had instead pressed the wrong button and committed them to memory for no good reason at all. Because they save from oldest to most recent – Dad’s voice started the session.
It’s the only recording I have of his voice. It was a message of little consequence in words – but remarkable depth in my emotional response every. single. time. I hear it.
I’ve been wondering about joy recently. Where it comes from. What it actually is. How to define it. How to wake up with it. Wondering when it will sneak in. Does it sneak in? How can I bring it about?
I am pretty good at defining what joy might be – by what it isn’t.
It isn’t a gorgeous wedding dress – it’s the smile on her face as she walks arm in arm with her dad down the aisle – and the laughter he brings with his love shining through the breadth of the moment.
It isn’t a fancy Disney cruise – it’s the laughter around a rickety wooden table in a ramshackle ‘cottage’ during a slapped together meal after a long day in the sun with family and friends on Kelley’s Island.
It isn’t the much coveted and desired Christmas toy – it’s the box and the wrappings and the ticket to imagination in which the toy arrived.
It seems that joy is more simple than I had expected. It comes unbidden, and it’s often overlooked. This morning it was the feel of the new pup bumping his big wet nose under my bare feet as he wiggled his way under my chair to get a belly rub. It was the smell of freshly ground coffee and Steven’s morning routine with french press, measuring, and patient waiting. It is the sounds of the creek at the end of the lane. The whiney of the colt who resides newly in our pasture. The ‘silence’ of the morning getting started with the birds.
I’m sitting in a camp chair on our tiny back porch. My tablet is propped on the small glass side-table beside the plastic blue water dish and the small metal bowl of cat food. Ancient DisMime, most extraordinary of all cats lounges in my lap and I awkwardly type around him. We are enjoying the shade of the porch during the heat of this day. New pup runs helter skelter through the back yard barking at bird noises and tackling sticks. As it often does, the writing comes quickly of a sudden, and I step back inside to answer the flow.
Joy is in the continuity, the safety, the depth of the memory and flow. It isn’t Steven making us coffee – me coffee – it’s in the years/months/days of him being by my side, treating me to coffee and conversation and companionship and trust. Joy is in the touch of this new pups nose, activating the memory of all the other saints, lounging by my feet, sharing in my life. Laughter around the table at Kelley’s Island can be translated to Dad’s kitchen table growing up, and our little family’s ceramic kitchen table and all of the giggling/school work/baking/conversations that found there way to my ears through the years.
Joy, it seems, is in the repetition. It’s in the air, the brain, the soul – just waiting to be recalled. A sound, a smell, a feel. The connectivity between memory, repetition, comfort, trust, sustainability – all roll unbidden to a depth of soul and out bubbles joy. We play a game in our family – tracing back thoughts to their origin. Finding the connection that lead you from point A to somewhere around Z in a matter of seconds. My joy does that. It starts slow and then rushes through sights, sounds, smells, feels, and lands squarely in that part of your heart that tries to be grown up. It percolates through every cell, it would seem, to land on your face with a smile. A knowing nod. A chirp of noise.
Joy is new, yet builds depth over time. It is embellished – bedazzled you might say – by the experiences that add up through connections. Dad’s voice triggers coffee and stained glass and nights listening to radio mysteries. Steve’s coffee kindness builds belief in deep roots, belonging, feeling worthy, slowing down to ’see’. Puppy nose is comfort and acceptance, and a return to strengths uncovered during survival.
Joy is.
Everywhere.
Soft, available, sweet. Gently calling you in. It’s weighty, but worth it.
“Hi, Dad. This is Diane.”
wanderingoutinleftfield 