Week 10 Hold onto joy

Where do you find your joy and how do you hold onto it?

There is so much misery around that I’m going to write about joy and how to hold onto it.

Right now, the golden afternoon sunlight is catching the corner of the garden room chair making the sage green, cat-scratched upholstery gleam. Joy is like a sudden patch of sunlight on a cloudy day, unexpected, always welcome, making you feel glad to be alive.

The Joy of Dancing

I’ve always followed the joy in my life, but I’m also guilty of chasing it away.  Take dancing.  I started learning to swing dance ten years ago. I loved it so I danced as often as I could, went to classes, signed up for workshops and asked anyone and everyone to dance with me. I had dances that lifted me up to heaven and that were better than sex. Because I was dancing so often my skills increased. Then I was thrilled, proud, confident, dancing to show off, pumped full of joy.

Then I got good enough to know how much there still was to learn. To get to be a better dancer I’d have to practice the stuff I wasn’t good at, put in many more hours. Dancing with fabulous dancers, I was no longer swept away but became self-conscious, fearing I had feet of clay. Dancing became a battle, a challenge, something I had to improve, something I was failing at!

I’d managed to bleed the joy out of dancing.

This is a pattern I can repeat with everything I’m passionate about.

Reading for Pleasure

An avid reader from the moment I learnt how to – books have given me a lifetime of joy. Now that I’m a published author my reading habits have changed. I’m reading ‘professionally’ – how do they do this? I’m reading ‘competitively’ – could I do this? I’m reading ‘comparatively’ – are they better than me? No longer reading for pleasure and inspiration and to understand the world and myself but to confirm my inadequacy as a writer!

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!

Draining joy from the pursuits I love is like taking the alcohol out of wine – madness!

Hold onto Joy

Luckily, help is at hand. My Writers Journey Workshop is led by Alison Cable who creates such a safe, fun, non-judgmental space that even I can’t turn it into a struggle.

https://www.litsalon.co.uk/

Being in distant intimacy over Zoom with a group of intelligent, sensitive, funny women has made me feel playful, daring, and free. In this space both reading and writing are joyful. There’s no competition. Every voice is unique and delightful, including my own. An infusion of joy into my writing and my life.

This week was our last session, and I was sad to say goodbye.  Here is the last poem I wrote which I think shows the impact the workshop has had.

Saying Goodbye to

The woman I so desperately

Wanted to be.

You know the one.

The thin one. The award winner.

The bright golden star.

Saying Hello to

The stranger who has

Always loved me.

My oldest, closest,

Newest Best Friend.

(the stranger who has always loved me is a steal from the Derek Walcott poem attached below)

So dear readers - love what you love with all your hearts and hold onto the joy wherever you find it – even the cat-scratched, muddy pawed, un-hoovered corners of our lives can catch the light.

Love After Love

by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes