For the month of July, I’m exploring the concept of joy, inspired by Kate Bowler’s book, Joyful, Anyway. (If you are new to this space, part 1 is here.) It’s the opposite of a personal growth book, acknowledging that life is hard. She writes:
“No self-help manual, no scheduling software, yoga class, or vision board, no hours of manifesting, self-medicating, or assertion training will ever fix us. No matter how we visualize our day, curb our emotions, or strive towards our “best life now” we cannot overcome the problem of finitude.”
Sounds like an upper, right? Life is hard and none of us - or the people we love - get out of it alive. No amount of magical thinking will change that. It’s the bad news, but it’s also the good news. We are not one solution/course/vitamin/hair product/gratitude list/career/soulmate away from fixing ourselves, in spite of what Instagram promises, so we can lay down that burden completely. We don’t need fixing or improving and sometimes life is hard because it’s life. Instead of trying to fix things that can’t be fixed, we can look for relief valves in the form of joy. We can focus on the little stream that cools and hydrates us in the middle of the desert instead of constantly searching for the mirage that makes us believe, for a moment, that the desert is no longer there.
As part of my self-imposed sabbatical, I dropped all of the “betterment” containers I’ve been in. Instead, I read fiction. I did a rewatch of Better Things, which is one of my favourite series of all time. If you haven’t seen that show, it’s an FX series that first ran from 2016 to 2022, about single mom and working actor Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon) who is raising three daughters in LA. It’s about aging and patriarchy and empty nesting and divorce and kindness and family and cooking and art. It’s funny and smart and touching and beautiful and is layered with wisdom. I think it’s the most flattering yet realistic of portrayal of motherhood (and specifically single motherhood) on TV. Also, Sam wears a lot of Zadig&Voltaire and Cinq à Sept jackets.
Hard things happen on the show but there is always joy: food and love and the occasional ghost sighting. Like Bowler’s book, the show does not sugarcoat things. When Sam’s eldest daughter, Max, is worried she won’t get into college, her mom’s friend shares from her experience:
“I’m gonna let you in on a big fat secret that we all know about life and that is that you don’t ever figure it out and you’re always behind and it’s kind of always unfair, frankly.”
We see this play out with Sam. Ageism makes her acting carer precarious. She’s carrying two mortgages. She has to take out a loan to pay spousal support to her ex. She has health scares and is mothering difficult kids and her mother is a bit of a nightmare. Still, Sam finds joy in everything. She loves her weird art and her superstitions and her quirky, dramatic friends. She loves to cook for a crowd. She finds humour in everything (a zany sense of humour helps quite a lot with joy, I think.) A rewatch of the show did far more for my soul than those “betterment” Zoom calls where someone, often with a life far worse than mine, tries to make a buck by selling me magic beans.
One of the core takeaways from Bowler’s book is that joy is very personal. I like Better Things. I like Brandy Melville clothes (it’s all I brought back from Hong Kong and Japan) even though it’s a toxic brand for teens. I love reading domestic thrillers set in leafy neighbourhoods. I love dogs. Specifically, I like small pampered dogs who give side-eye like Teddy’s friend Isabel or some of his other pals
This is my For You Page on Instagram.
It’s flat-faced cats in hats and pampered dogs. Is this productive in any way? It is not. Is it bettering the world? Nope. Does it bring me joy? Absolutely. I can be sitting in a doctor’s office wondering what fresh hell awaits me and still derive pleasure from these fluffy fools.
What brings me joy now is smaller and simpler than when I was younger but also much more specific. I had to pick up Teddy from his groomer today since we are having a heat wave and it’s too far to walk in these temperatures. There was a parking space right out front which is a miracle. And I was able to execute the parking job perfectly which is special since I’m just getting back into driving. At the groomer, a freshly-styled goldendoodle gave me a hug. Yup. She stood on her hind legs and gave me a hug and she was so snuggly. Apparently, she does this with everyone, but it was nice to have it happen to me. I’m not sure I’d have even noticed these kind of things before.
Joy is available when things are going sideways. When my kids were small, I took them on a trip to the east coast. I rented a “beach house” through one of these rent by owner services. The photos and description were deceptive, although not enough to warrant a refund. It was sort of near a beach, I guess, if you didn’t mind hiking through through leechy-looking reeds to get there. When you finally did get to the beach (we drove), there were dinner plate-sized jellyfish with long stinging tentacles everywhere. The house did not have any of the security features promised and the owner had an entire wall full of slasher film VHS tapes. I’m not saying he was up in the attic but I’m implying it. I know I will sound like a prima donna here but my nervous system was not built for these things. Needless to say, I swallowed the fees and got a hotel in town and our cheap and cheerful vacation ended up costing more than a week in Paris. Sooo, a little hard to be happy - a single mom on a stressful trip that has just become very expensive - but there was still available joy.
We got to experience the wall of slurpees at the nearby trailer park.
(A Coke slushie is one of the world’s very best things.)
We saw the Big Potato.
I got my photo with a big chick.
Every time those photos come up as a reminder, I feel joyful even though the trip itself was kind of a high stress disaster.
Joy is often corny. This past weekend, I was at Polo for Heart with my daughter. I’m at the age where I spring for VIP treatment: I need seats and food. I used to take my kids to the polo family day when they were little and even though the event was lovely this year (the caterer was amazing!), I’m not sure it was as joyful as in 2015 when one of the banks brought a capybara, lemur and rabbit to the polo event, which was so deliciously random.
We don’t need to apologize for our joys. I love walking to get iced coffee. During these hot days, I do it almost every day. Is this extravagant and wasteful and contradicts the advice of every personal finance guru ever? Yup. Do I care? Nope. I will die on the hill that joy is an act of defiance. The world prefers us to be miserable so we spend too much on things we don’t appreciate and are too exasperated to vote. If an iced latte keeps a smile on my face and gets me engaged with the world, it’s a win.
In August, we’ll be diving into the concept of Mattering and reading Jennifer Breheny Wallace’s beautiful book.
But for this month, I’d invite you to continue to focus on joy. What makes you feel alive? What functions as a relief valve for you? How can you feel hopeful when it’s hard? Also take note of when you are policing your own joy? Is there anything that makes your heart sing that you don’t pursue out of guilt or because it seems corny?
See you next Tuesday. (*wink wink*)
Xx Jen
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