Seeking Joy or Delight?
It is summer. In Ontario it is a glorious time. I always dream of it in the winter… the hot days (but not really too hot), the cool pool, sunshine, dinners on the deck with friends, fireflies coming out just after dusk, the green grass, and amazing food cooked on the grill. Even the rain is refreshing and makes the flowers beautiful.
I usually think of summer as a time to bank joy for the rest of the year. I sleep. I rest. I see friends. My heart fills up. Joy is usually a part of me that I access like a battery pack to recharge. It is present and useful. I count on joy.
This summer has been touched by sadness. In the 1940s my great-grandparents built a cabin in the mountains of Ruidoso, New Mexico. I have been going there my whole life. My mother lived in the walkout basement while it was constructed. This summer our cabin survived a massive forest fire but the neighbors’ houses on both sides and most of the houses on the street burned to the ground. My cousin’s vacation home also burned to ashes. After the fire, flash floods have devastated much of the town. It is the monsoon season. The rains will continue until August. I have watched in horror as the town I love suffers and people have lost so much more than we have. Sometimes people say we are lucky but I don’t really feel lucky. I feel shell-shocked.
Then in the 1950s
2024 After the fire
We are in the middle of a massive remodel of our kitchen which makes day to day living a little tougher. We moved out of our kitchen the last week of May and hope to have a kitchen by Labor Day. It is a weird blend of good and bad. The food is delicious–slow cooked on the grill. We work together to make delicious meals. We eat a lot of protein and local Ontario produce. Breakfast is a little weird, cooked on the grill. I notice sometimes I want fast breakfast. And the rain… the rain usually leads to take-out. Sometimes I get cranky. Sometimes we all get cranky.
I have struggled to feel joy this summer. It feels important to stand in a solidarity of sadness with the town I care about. Day-to-day living is a little more stressful. Real joy feels illusive this year. I feel more introverted.
This weekend I heard a sermon by minister Reilly Yeo at the First Unitarian Church of Toronto. I caught the service online. In the sermon, Rev. Yeo distinguishes between happiness and delight. Delight is in the moments that we happen on. Those moments we are fully present to our lives. Delight can happen even when we aren’t full of happiness–even when we are sad. Delight and sadness can co-exist.
I have found this to be a powerful thought. This summer joy feels distant but delight feels possible and present.Â
I am enjoying the feel of the swimming pool. The fresh grass, the green all around, the laughter of family and friends….it feels ever present. The promise of future joy lives in me while my emotions hold it back. I am delighted by the possibilities, the moments, the conversation, coffee by the pool in the morning. I am also present to my horror at the floods and loss in Ruidoso and to the feelings of compassion for the people struggling to figure it out. I am awash with all the emotions.Â
It is in the moments of delight I restore myself, my heart, my soul.
Where are you on your journey? Do you want to focus on joy or delight this summer?
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