Reflecting on my life today,
I see for seven decades
I’ve been collecting sorrow.
Spirit asked me,
what about giving joy a chance?
At first I thought it would get me
thrown out of the human race,
as no sane person seems
to search out joy
in its hiding place–
the cobwebbiest corners
of our minds.
Sorrow is much more vocal
and easier to locate.
Besides, being a sorrow-hunter
felt a lot more loyal to humans to me
than being a joy collector.
Sad people often seem to resent
celebrations.
Still, someone has to do it.
Why not me? I’ve put in lots of innings
being a grief receptacle.
I started with gratitude for the folks
who welcomed, listened to,
loved and supported me
when others rejected and judged me.
When young, I’d been rejecting and judgmental, too,
but the unlooked-for compassion
of these I had shunned took root in me.
I came out of the refining fires of
grief and shame
with more strength to love and
more depth of kindness–
things I’d never felt the need of before.
The fires themselves, though they
torched my self-confidence, broadened
my experience, gave me a large reference
library of sadness and a whole new family
that I’d never realized I belonged to.
These new family members
had also been through the fires.
With their care, acceptance and inclusiveness,
they handed back to me my tattered, wasted life,
now mended, rewoven, altered to fit me
like an evening gown.
They also taught me how to reweave lives
from the wreckage. Without them,
sadness might only have soured me.
When I saw that the fires’ destruction
and the assistance of these friends
had given me a new name and a new home,
an explosion of joy spread glitter over
everything and created a bright,
answering echo of delight each time
life reveals its presence in my neighborhood.
I’m sitting here now listening to liquid notes
from a red-collared sparrow laying claim to our balcony.
His song strokes my ears like butterfly wings,
blazes up briefly, subsides, then flares again.
This song, you may observe, contains
nothing but perfect cadence and trill,
tempting me to sing myself, as he does,
from the book of joy.
Thank you for saying that, Minx. I appreciate your engaging with this insight. Here’s to joy!
This little box at the bottom of your post asks what do I think? What I think is that these words wrestle with the paradox of standing up for joy in a world devoted it sometimes seems to falling for what’s wrong. What I think is Brava Suzanne/Susy. You’ve nailed it.