I rely on this feeling called joy and am in a state of awe now when I experience it. Small things please me and bring a near delirious state of happiness. A recent example is that my balcony garden on the 22nd floor has small china planters of herbs. Post a long Canadian winter in the late spring I shall plant fresh herbs. I walk out a few days ago and examine the empty pots and one is covered with dried thin twigs of last year’s bounty of chives. . As I am about to pull them out when a burst of vivid green halts me. Four months of snow and gloom later , a year later and minus any nourishment the chive plant is alive. My chest constricts and my heart flutters as well. The plant has survived and blooms! This is pure joy! It is a small thing but fa valuable marker for gauging sensations.
The quest for happiness where joy has to be a frequent visitor could be a compared to frequent Santa visits for children who find gifts often. I studied flamenco dance for two years with a very serious teacher. Two decades have slipped by and my dance shoes no longer exist. I pull out an ancient recording and wear my stack heel boots. Vivid memories of my great passion for this dance form and the thrill of mastering the intricate footwork used to make me race to my classes. I want to feel this again. The passage of time be damned!
In the beginning I lurch around like an elephant on my tiled kitchen floor where Ican catch my reflection on the glass windows of the living room space. I hit a gym regularly so my legs are fine and i remember most of the steps. Halting at first in my jeans and t-shirt and then simply repeating over and over again I have become the merciless teacher who conducted this drill. The music brings the ambience of Seville’s Flamenco Bars right into my light filled apartment. There is no teacher to gaze at me sternly. In seven minutes i am breathing heavier. At the nine minute point everything falls into place and my posture corrects itself . I am doing the opening steps of the Bulerias. My ankles are firm and i clap as well. The neighbours have not knocked on the door. The reflection in the glass is of a dancer and a burst of joy suffuses my chest. I dance for another nine minutes with a reddened face, heart pounding , cardiac arrest on the horizon but cartwheels in my mind.
Willy Nilly we are more in the league of pleasure seekers. rather than travellers on the path of Buddhist tranquility. The pursuit of pleasure carries the promise of experiencing joy. Most of life is a practised affair. Jobs, recreational activities and the entwining with family have a predictable grid and one follows this easily. It is the studied behaviour of the human race for centuries. Covid, restricted the pursuit of pleasure derived from outward sources. A cocktail or meal shared with a friend or a night at the symphony. People forced to create pleasure within the confines of their homes and lack of visits to the elderly. Grandparents pressed against a window pane catching the sight of beloved grand children outside largely unrecognizable with masks on. At the supermarket or drug store the delinquent unmasked person subjected to virulent verbal abuse. Everybody on a short fuse. Everybody baking fattening sourdough bread and boasting? Certainly a moratorium on Joy.
In 1932 a French Couturier, Jean Patou watching his business succumb to the post depression slump created a perfume called ‘Joy’. It boasted of being the costliest perfume globally. His message was there is joy around just open this small simple square bottle with a gold neck. Like every other woman I read about this first in Time magazine and mentioned it to my young student husband whom i was joining. We had been married for two months and he had flown ahead of me to the new country we were going to settle in. When I landed and he took me to the tiny bachelor apartment he had assembled his welcoming gifts for me. Red roses, a box of chocolates and a tiny bottle of joy.
Opening the little !/8th of an ounce bottle every Bulgarian rose, Jasmine and Tuberose bloom from the flower farms of Grasse, France entered my nostrils and I inhaled deeply wanting this perfume to invade my entire body. and stay there forever. I had never felt so magically seduced before.
“So you like it?” said my amused husband noting my rapt response.
I used it for thirty years because the essence of my favourite filled me with joy.
Then there are deeds which can create this sizzle or current which is experienced. Acts of charity are an example. Feeding an obviously starving person quietly and with dignity. Not a food bank scenario.
He was always positioned at the gas station i frequented. a thin starving man casting silent beseeching looks at people going in and out of the glass doors. The coffee and snack bar inside always had line- ups and when people came out laden with cups of coffee and breakfast food he would hold the door open. Nobody cared or spoke to him. He was a nuisance who evoked no guilt. He did not beg he was simply there.
One cold morning I went inside and purchased a large breakfast order and a smaller one> He opened the door for me.
“Please come with me “ I walked to my car.
He hovered near the car door.
“No sit with me, I will heat the car and we shall have breakfast together.. I hate having breakfast alone”.
That look of wonder, unbridled appetite and satisfied smile on his face raced to imbed a pellet of joy in my heart. I basked in it all day. It had the same effect as though I was riding a helium balloon floating through a blue sky.