A more joyful life

Tonight I am writing to you from my back deck, and in this moment (perhaps just in this moment), there is perfect peace.

The past four hours were a dizzying whirl—kids arrive home from school, I pause mid-email and stuff my laptop into my work bag, The Boy changes clothes, and we drive to swim team practice. He swims laps while I answer emails and write a newsletter via my cell phone’s hotspot, all while praying with all that is in me that the rowdy older kids who are chasing each around with swim caps full of 60-degree pool water don’t cause my computer to fry from a second-hand splash. 45 minutes later Husband joins, Big Girl ready for her turn in the swim lanes, Little Girl antsy because Guppies doesn’t start until next week, and it’s so hard to watch her sister and brother in the pool without the ability to join. Practice concludes, we make our way home to cobble together a dinner of whatever we can find in the fridge, then it’s bedtime routines and laundry and kitchen cleanup.

And now I’m here, on my back deck, in pure bliss. The evening sun is filtering through trees and dancing with the bees on the heads of the clover that covers our yard (to my joy and my husband’s chagrin). Fragrant star jasmine winds its way up and over the banister, and innumerable birds sing their sunset melodies. Our deck furniture is a vintage white metal bamboo couch and chair set, a favorite Facebook Marketplace find that probably shouldn’t live outdoors, but has held up beautifully here, so I’m not in a hurry to find a better option. The woman who sold it was cleaning out her mothers home. We drove an hour up into the mountains for the furniture, and left with stories, full hearts, an elephant side table that her brother brought back from Vietnam, and huge conch shells for our children. Those shells live on our living room coffee table, and remind me of the kindness of a stranger who needed kindness herself.

This isn’t the usual thing I might write for Substack, but two thoughts have lodged themselves in my mind lately, and I can’t seem to let them go.

The first is a meditation on the nature of my job. A photographer may call herself many things—a storyteller, an artist, a creative entrepreneur, someone in pursuit of beauty or honesty or a dream world or change. If I am most introspective and honest about what it is that I do as a photographer, I think it can be summarized as “The One Who Notices and Finds the Beauty.” So much of my work as a wedding photographer is to see, to notice, to understand, and to help others remember what is true and beautiful and praiseworthy. It’s as simple as that. My job is to notice. My job is to be attuned. It is to help my clients remember.

In order to do my job well, I have to practice noticing. Which is one of the reasons I have come to sit outside after kissing my children goodnight. To practice noticing the moment my face feels cool instead of warm, because the sun has tucked itself behind the trees on the horizon. To notice the stillness of the air, and how jasmine’s perfume hangs more heavily in it after the sun dips away. To see when the last bee tucks herself away and the clover blossoms cease to dance.

To notice, we have to practice noticing. That is my first thought.

My second thought is this: Joy comes after noticing the beautiful things in every single minute.

It is tempting to believe that magic is something that happens to us, from forces outside of us, something that we have no control over. But the more I learn about how our brains work, the more I practice gratitude (also called the habit of noticing, “being present,” and the Art of Possibility), the more joy follows. Happiness hinges on our circumstances; it rises and falls as our perception of our position in life rises and falls. Joy is rooted in something greater, something that doesn’t change. It is a choice, and it is a habit of the mind.

Not long ago, after complaining to a friend about a hard spot in my business, she challenged me to share more of my unique point of view with the world, the one that romanticizes every day and turns “normal” into something beautiful. In my 20s I was labeled a “hopeless romantic,” and I wore that title proudly. In my late 30s I shifted gears in business in a way that required gargantuan effort to generate momentum. Somewhere in the middle of that push, I became so busy trying to muscle my way up the ladder, so busy proving myself, that I stopped soaking in the gift of just being. I’ve decided that my 40s should be all about what sparks joy—not because it magically happens, but because I have made a habit of noticing and being grateful for every tiny bit of beauty that makes up a life. Not because my life is innately beautiful, but because I have chosen to see things as beautiful, every single day.

Want to join me?

The sun has set. The bird songs are quieting. The cafe lights draped around the deck railing just came on, proof that the timer is working as it should, and that I should move inside. There are two pool towels hanging in their proper place on the towel rack, another one crumpled on the floor next to one and a half (??) pair of flip flops, goggles, and a plastic foot bath from when The Boy stepped on a wasp and we soaked his foot in an epsom salt to try to calm down the swelling. Perfect bliss. And a little bit of chaos.