Searching for Joy

Usually, I'm not someone who does New Year's Resolutions, per se.  To me, the idea of setting a New Year's Resolution calls to mind something very specific and big that you try to accomplish, therefore setting yourself up for disappointment if life in the coming year takes you in a direction that doesn't make that goal attainable.

What I do sometimes do is choose general themes for the coming year at the start of a new calendar year (which, because of my religion's focus on seasonal cycles, is different to me than the start of a new yearly cycle).  These themes are just that...general themes of things that I want to focus on doing or bringing into my life.  For 2011, the theme I chose was finding "Joy."  As we go deeper into the waning time of the year, I am compelled to check in with this theme and see how I think I'm doing.

It may seem odd that I have to go around looking for Joy, but the fact is that there is a lot of sadness that I carry with me.  I have lost a lot of the most beloved people in my life, and I have accepted that I will never stop grieving for them.  Sometimes I feel that grief very strongly, but I don't want to wallow in it, drown in it, and become defined by it.  So what that means is that I'm just a person who sometimes needs to actively seek out the opposite side of the coin.  In ways, the contrast is beautiful.  When you feel that great sadness, and then look around you and open up to Joy as a way of keeping it in check, it helps you realize all the ways in which life truly is beautiful.

 

One of the things I thought I would do as a way of bringing more Joy into my life this year was making Hooping more of a part of my day-to-day activities.

It may sound a bit silly, and perhaps it is...and perhaps that's the point.  Nonetheless, when I'm inside a hula hoop, it's hard for me to be unhappy!  For at least that moment in time, I'm actually able to recapture that feeling of childhood joy and enthusiasm, remembering what it feels like to just play, and be thrilled about it.  It's a feeling that I don't tap into often, not only because of grief, but just because of the nature of my personality.  I believe a coven-mate once referred to it as "stoic."  I'm by nature an introverted and fairly reserved person.  It takes a lot to get me to just cut loose.

Part of my plan for bringing more Hooping into my life as a tool for bringing more Joy into my life was to teach Hoop Dance classes in Watertown.  That didn't exactly work out as I had hoped.  Sharing Hooping with others is fun, but while there did seem to be a pretty good amount of interest in the beginning, the interest definitely dwindled over time.  The business I had in Watertown closed, and I was no longer there every day, which made going in for classes without being sure anyone was going to show up make less and less sense.  And now I'm looking for a job (which I'm sure will warrant a whole separate blog post), so I couldn't do it anymore anyway.  That's why I usually don't do resolutions.  If I had a resolution of, for instance, becoming a full time Hoop Dance instructor...I would have already failed.

But that wasn't the point.  The point was to find Joy, and Hooping was only supposed to be a forum for that.  I think I feel like I have to check in on this because I wasn't able to maintain the classes, and in some ways that's disappointing.  But if I'm honest and not so hard on myself, I know that Hooping is in fact still a tool for finding Joy.  I still do it just about every day, and in fact, it's more fun in a way to be able to just do it for the sake of it, and not have to structure it all into classes that can be taught to others.  And while I chose to make Hooping one of my focal points, because it's something active that I can make myself do and I know it will work (as opposed to more abstract ideas that are harder to pin down and make happen), it's not like it's the only thing I'm doing to bring more Joy into my life.

Because I'm just weird, when I'm thinking about abstract concepts, such as Joy, I sometimes like to do Google image searches for them just to see what comes up.  Here is what Google search has taught me about Joy...

Joy is shared...

Joy is love...

Joy is a giddy thrill...

Joy is puppies and kitties...

Joy is TOTALLY a cupcake...

Joy is bubbles...

Or, alternatively, water...

"Jumping for Joy" really is a thing...

And yes, Joy can even be a hula hoop...

I swear it really did come up!
 

Other things I learned...based on photos, Joy is most often found outside, with the chances of success increasing greatly at the beach.  Apparently, Joy may also be random people named Joy, and The Joy Luck Club...book or movie.  Still though...I'd say Google image search can be surprisingly insightful!

Here's to looking forward, continuing the search for Joy...

Teardrops & Raindrops

Today I woke up crying.  As bad as it sounds, that isn't actually that rare for me...though it isn't something I thought I'd be talking about this early into this whole blogging project.  It isn't quite the pathetic scene you might imagine.  It has to do with a lot of grief that I still carry inside me over the loss of my dad, my grandma, my 2nd dad (Tommy), and my sister.  I am nowhere near ready to drudge up all of those ghosts here, so I'll just say that the loss of each one of them is still a lot to bear, and there are bits of sorrow inside me still being processed.  Sometimes I wake up without really being able to remember what I dreamed about them, but still able to feel their presence, and that's a hard way to enter into waking consciousness.  I am woeful as sort of a permanent part of my being now, but that in no way means that I am a depressed.  I still laugh a lot, joke a lot, have a lot of fun, love passionately, and am perfectly capable of seeing great beauty in life.  I guess to me, though, grief is beautiful too, because it's an echo of love.

Even though it started out with that weird, haunting sadness, the day didn't turn out half bad.  Wednesdays are always busy for me, because they're the first in a string of 3 days each week when I teach Hoop Dance classes.  They're always the day I introduce something new, but because we worked on a pretty tricky new skill last week, this week was more of a continuation of things we've previously worked on.  That meant that the only thing I really had to prepare this week was a new stretch, and things were fairly easy-going on the hoop front.

I did, however, have a bit of a double-whammy of activity today, because in addition to kicking off a new week of hoop classes, I hosted my coven for the full moon.  For weeks I had been planning this amazing fire ritual, and of course today was rainy and dreary all day.  Thunderstorms came and went, the power was in and out, the dogs scoffed defiantly at the idea of going out, and needless to say...the fire pit and all of the wood were soaked.  Even if the rain let up for the evening, there would have been no hope.  So, rather than scrambling at the last minute to figure out what to do, I made the decision early in the day to come up with an alternate plan so that we wouldn't miss a beat.  If it was going to rain, that was cool!  I'd just come up with something that involved the rain!  Since the rain came with its fair share of thunder and lightning today, I thought that we'd go outside, get good and wet, connect with the energy of the storm, and gather some highly charged storm water to use in workings down the road that needed a little extra "umph."  We were all geared up to move forward with our new plan, and then...no more rain!  Ah, Mother Nature always has lessons to impart!  Be unpredictable, spontaneous, and able to work with the moment you're given.  OK...noted.

We ended up completely improvising and actually having a great time.  We went outside at dusk into an area where we were entirely surrounded by maple trees and fireflies.  We staggered candles all throughout the grass around us, and then did a bit of a storm dance.  A huge wind came through and blew out all of the candles, which was a stunning effect, and then the thunder began to rumble while lightning cut across the sky.  No rain, which meant no rain water to collect, but the energy in the air was still out of control, and we all really enjoyed it.

And now, after a day spent in intense preparation and an evening spent in intense activity, I am in bed typing this, wondering when Matt will get home from over-working himself, and hoping that tomorrow I wake up with a kiss from my husband, rather than from warm tears running down my face.