Saturday, January 21, 2012

Stifling Joy

(Finally, FINALLY!  an opportunity to sit and write! YES!)

So many blog stories are collecting in my head, and funny, it's THIS one that demands to be written.  It is the newest, the scene witnessed only hours ago...



It's a work day, and I am in the cafeteria, standing in line, waiting to order some breakfast.  I notice a toddler and her big brother - himself probably five - walking hand in hand.  My Mom-radar goes off, and I watch to be sure they are walking with a purpose TOWARD an adult they know and not searching for one.

Then I see her (phew), not far off, and I hear her ask the oldest, "Did you take her?"  He nods.  Then to the younger, she asks "Did you tee-tee?"  I can barely hold back my grin and I look away as the young girl nods.  Her mother nods too.

And then I hear it.

"Yaaaaaaaay!"

It's not the mother - it's the girl.  I look back.  She is smiling from ear to ear and clapping her hands.  Joy.

I smile and wonder....   It's not that I want applause, or exuberant joy every time I use the bathroom, BUT...

I think about the process.  At first it's amazing and wonderful, and we celebrate.  And then, it becomes common place - OR we are taught that it is no longer a reason to celebrate.  Either way, we begin to take it for granted - or worse yet, stifle the Joy.

I watch the children at church, running, dancing and spinning, laughing - and I wonder when and why, as we become "grown-up"s, we lose that.  It becomes, somehow, "not appropriate".

But you know none of it is a guarantee. This day, this breath, or the next.  None of it.  I wonder how many things I have come to take for granted....

And I wonder, too... if I have been taught to be disconnected from Joy - or at least reign it in... if I can learn to see it again, and express it fully.

To dance in the rain and spin in the falling snow and run with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. To experience Joy in it's fullest.

Of late, some of my favorite moments have been sitting next to my boy-child, and letting him "swype-text" on my phone.  He wiggles his finger around on the screen, across the letter pad, and waits, expectedly, to see what word the dictionary chooses to display.  And then, it begins.  The giggling.

Uncontrollable giggling - contagious to the point of tears.  We laugh as the tears stream down our faces.  And, once able to breathe fully, he points his finger out again...

Joy...