Joy

I recently read a topic on Amy's Live, Learn, Knit blog titled What Brings You Joy? In her post Amy mentioned a book she had read, Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer, which I have added to my "must read" list. During this past week's marathon NaNo writing, I found myself often distracted from my story and thinking about joy. I began to wonder what the difference was between joy and pleasure, since I could easily think of many things that brought pleasure to my world, but not so many things that seemed to bring joy. So today I looked up the words "pleasure" and "joy" online and found an explanation that suited me at Dictonary.com.

Pleasure, enjoyment, delight, joy refer to the feeling of being pleased and happy. Pleasure is the general term: to take pleasure in beautiful scenery. Enjoyment is a quiet sense of well-being and pleasurable satisfaction: enjoyment at sitting in the shade on a warm day. Delight is a high degree of pleasure, usually leading to active expression of it: delight at receiving a hoped-for letter. Joy is a feeling of delight so deep and so lasting that one radiates happiness and expresses it spontaneously: joy at unexpected good news.

So what does bring me joy?

My first thought was writing, but writing is not always joyful or even pleasurable. It can be difficult, painful and emotionally revealing, none of which brings me joy. Writing is something that I have to do, like breathing and eating. It is a rare day that I do not write something, whether a blog post, an email or a letter to a friend (sometimes those are even handwritten!). It does not matter to me whether anyone reads what I write or not. The possibility of an audience is not why I choose write.

Reading also comes to mind, but again, it is more of a need I have, like an addiction to caffeine or nicotine. A day is not complete if I have not had my daily fix of word input and output, reading and writing.

Crocheting gives me pleasure and satisfaction. I find it relaxing, soothing. But crocheting does not give me joy. The act of giving a crocheted item away, knowing that it will be used and appreciated by the recipient, that gives me joy. I never really understood why we needed to save an item that someone had made, pass it down from generation to generation, never to be used. To me, the value of the item is in knowing the person who created that item. If I did not personally know great-grandma Tilly, I am not going to value something made by her nearly as much as I am going to value something made by my Grammy. And so it brings me joy to know that items I have made and given to others are actually being used. That was the reason I made them in the first place!

Here is a picture of the baby afghan I made for my niece's new baby boy:

Knowing that Aiden's older brother loved his afghan and carried it around with him for several years gave me great joy. I hope Aiden enjoys his half as much.

Here is another thing that gives me joy:

Copper has taken to sleeping on laptops and computers. When it was ninety degrees and better outside, she preferred sleeping out on our balcony all day long. But when cooler temperatures came in September, she ceased wanting to go out on the balcony and now sleeps away the day on top of laptops or any other computer she can find that is running and warm. Anyway, just seeing a cat gives me pleasure, but having one (or more) of my own that I can interact with gives me joy.

Photography brings me joy. Amy mentioned photography and art in her post, too. Unlike Amy, I have never been interested in the darkroom and developing of pictures. What I love is the hunt for a good subject, the art of framing the subject and the sense of accomplishment I feel when I capture a moment in time. That gives me joy, knowing that I have saved some essence of "now" that can easily be recaptured in the future simply be looking at the picture.

My children, of course, bring me moments of joy. Their individual births were three such moments. Add to that my granddaughter, Miss Munchkin; I was lucky enough to be present at her birth and one of the very first to hold her. Miss Munchkin brings me joy almost every time I see her. There is just something about a toddler who is happy and curious and loving that is joyful, especially when she is related to you.

I feel joy when we hit the road for a road trip, whether it is just a day's jaunt somewhere or a vacation. There is something truly joyous about leaving behind the every day world for a bit and looking forward towards possible great adventures. And I feel joy every time I step onto a beach. Hearing the waves crashing onto shore and the cry of the gulls, feeling the heat of the sun through the sand on your bare feet, the smell of the salt spray, it all fills me with joy. Oh, and the skirl of bagpipes bring me joy. If ever I were to come across bagpipes being played on the beach while I was walking barefoot with my granddaughter, my heart would likely burst from experiencing too much joy all at once.

Amy's post talks a lot about finding joy in your work or rather work that you find joyful. I know this is the goal of many unschoolers, to find a way to turn their passion into a career. That is a great goal, although I know few that have been able to truly realize it. The only possible work-related thing that brings me joy is being able to find answers and resources for others. I love to research; I love to hunt for the perfect gift, for the perfect book, for that needed quote or just the right word that will complete a project. I think that is why I continue with my website, since HTML and web design certainly does not bring me joy. On the contrary, many days it fills me with stress and frustration. But I love to know that a resource I have reviewed or something I have written has provided an answer to someone's quest. That brings me joy.

So, what brings you joy?

New Favorite CD

I have been wanting the Vince Gill "These Days" CD pack ever since I first heard of it, especially when I learned that one of the CDs was totally acoustic. I put it on my Christmas list last year, much good that did. So last week I broke down and bought it. Am I ever glad I did! I have listened to each of the four CDs several times over this past week and I cannot decide which is the best. And I am wondering why I never bought a Vince Gill album/CD before?! And yes, I am old enough that I still think of them as albums and miss those wonderful album covers.

I know I just posted about technology and how confusing it can be, but I am glad that I live in this time where there is such an abundance of music. I love music. I have way too many favorite performers and CDs and music genres. If I have any say over my next life, I will come back with more musical ability. More? Hah! Maybe I should say "I will come back with musical ability" since I do not have much at all in this life.

So, what CDs can I listen to for hours on end? Here are a few:

• Road to Drumlemon - The Full Moon Ensemble
• Down the Old Plank Road - The Chieftains
• Safe Harbor - The Full Moon Ensemble
• Home - Dixie Chicks
• Live at the Acropolis - Yanni
• Secret People - Capercaillie
• Harvest Home - Jay Ungar & Molly Mason
• Out of Ireland, The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Original Film Soundtrack
• Rainbow Man - Jeff Bates
• The Wildlife Concert - John Denver

Those are the ones that seem to hit my CD player the most often. The ones I listen to while writing or thinking or when I just want to feel good. And I refrained from listing Christmas ones! I will have to save those for another day. And here's another blog entry to fill up the month with nothing much of import to add to the world. Yippee!

I Just Do Not Understand …

There are many things in our current culture that I do not understand.

• Rap and HipHop music (although upon closer listening, there are some similarities between rap and bluegrass)
• Chainsaw / gory / psychological thriller movies
• The fascination with certain "stars" who have done little to nothing to deserve that term
• Preschool

Now I realize that many parents have to work and they figure their children will be more prepared academically for kindergarten and be better socialized in a preschool setting than in a daycare setting. Doesn't that sound odd? "Be more prepared academically for kindergarten?" Not all that many years ago Kindergarten prepared you for first grade. You did not have to prepare FOR Kindergarten.

What I do not understand is why a parent who chooses to stay at home to raise their child should feel that child would be better off enrolled in a preschool. If you can read and interact with your child, then you can teach your child everything he/she will need to know. It really is not that difficult. Read to them a little bit every day. Talk to them like they are an intelligent human being, rather than your puppy dog. Well, maybe I should not say that because I have seen some people who talk to their dog on a higher vocabulary level than they do their children. Just don’t baby-talk all the time to your child. Involve your child in your every day activities. Let them help with the laundry, sweeping the floor, changing the baby's diapers, whatever your daily tasks may be. And talk to them while doing so. Explain what you are doing and why. Involve them. Interact with them. It might be fun!

As for socializing, children are much better socialized from being around adults, especially their own family members, and especially the first several years of their lives. Did our pioneers worry about their children's socialization? For that matter, did our grandparents have preschool? Did our parents? I certainly did not have preschool and I was more than ready for kindergarten when the time came. At what point did preschool become a standard practice? I guess I was bucking the trend when my children were that age, almost twenty years ago. Some days I sure am beginning to feel old!

Change

I subscribe to a daily e-mail service from www.tut.com . Today's message was this:

The great thing about change, Karen, is that it absolutely, positively, always means things are going to get even better.

Even when you don't know how.

The Universe

Sounds good to me!

I cleaned out more books yesterday. There are 24 grocery bags full of books to take to the used bookstore at the public library. It was time to get really ruthless about how many books I have versus how many I need and how many I want to pack and move. And those were only from my fiction shelves! The shelves look a lot neater, though. Time to tackle some of the non-fiction shelves again and all those that are stored in the office building. Most of those can go to the library too!

When I finished carrying all those grocery bags to the van, I then tackled the four containers of cassette tapes. Who listens to them anymore? I saved out the comedy ones that would be difficult to replace with CDs and the rest I am going to give away. What's the saying, if you haven't used it in 6 months, you don't need it? Maybe today's the day to tackle my closet again. It seems like I'm on a decluttering roll!

Cars, the movie

Saturday we went to see the movie "Cars." What a hoot! I've not laughed so much in a long, long time. You wouldn't think a movie that was totally cars, with no people in it at all, would work. But it did! Of course, the fact that I'm a NASCAR fan might have helped, but even those who are not race fans would find it funny and get many of the jokes and character associations. At least my son's girl friend did.

What I loved the most, besides trying to figure out who's voice was doing which character, was the way well-known real-life individuals were woven into the plot. And I loved the way that the cars were created to "BE" like those persons. Larry the Cable Guy certainly did an excellent job with "Mater," but then he has a face (& body) made for animation (or, in the old days, radio!).

I could have easily sat through the movie a second time. I'll need to watch it a second time just to catch all the credits, since they put them side by side with outtakes and other pieces of animation. Too busy watching to be able to read! Oh! And be sure to stay for all the credits. There's a cute little surprise at the very end of the movie.

The sound track was excellent also. Several of the songs were very haunting, making one long for days gone by. I don't often buy sound tracks to movies, but I may very well make an exception this time.

All in all, an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours!