Joy is Not Made to Be a Crumb

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

— “Don’t Hesitate,” by Mary Oliver, Swan, 2010

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It’s been a rough summer. After a rough spring. It’s hard not to be worn down by anger and fear. The past two weeks, a friend’s Weekly Wake-up, which comes to my mailbox every Monday, reminded me as bad as the news is every single day, I am not going to let it rob me of what is rightfully mine—and yours: Joy.

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Weekly Wake-up

“You don’t have to be afraid of pain. If it’s going to be there, you can let it be there—but don’t let the mind be in pain with it.” Upasika Kee Nanayon

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I know I live in white, middle-class privilege, just by the fact of it, not that I’ve done anything to earn it. I got a first-hand recognition of that last week as I was leaving the Staples parking lot in my hometown, which has a good-sized Mexican community, in a county the three commissioners recently voted to declare a “non-sanctuary county.” I’ve been worried about them, wondering what I can do to be watchful. A police officer was standing at the door of an SUV occupied by a woman who appeared to be of Mexican descent. I wasn’t sure what to do, what I could do, if I needed to do something. Nor was I comfortable driving away. And so I sat there, not merging onto the street. A few moments later, the officer returned to his vehicle and moved on. I breathed relief. I determined to find out if there is a workshop or a group here to teach me how to be an advocate for these citizens of our town if we see potential wrong being done.

Meanwhile—back to the topic—I’m not reducing joy to crumbs. I’m taking the whole slice of cake, and eating it too. When my mother was alive, living here in this house, I often took my early-morning coffee to the meadow and sat on the log I’d rolled outside the barn door, and watched the sun rise above tall firs, flooding the meadow with sunlight long before it reached the house on the side of the hill. It was an opportunity to begin my day with joy, away from her suffocating presence in the house. I haven’t done it a single time since she went to assisted living nine years ago, and died 18 months later. Early morning joy is available from my chair in the window, and I don’t have to get dressed. One morning last week, before the temperature rose to way-too-hot, deciding I didn’t really have to get dressed, I slipped on shoes and walked up to the log to greet the day.

What I experienced:

💜   Mourning doves cooing in the woods behind me. Cuh’coo, cuh’coo, cuh’coo.
💜   Robins rejoicing from the garden fence rail, hopping about searching for worms in the grass.
💜   A young deer grazing the underbelly of the neighbor’s plum tree, then moving into my meadow.
💜  A small brown rabbit making itself “invisible” by sitting very still.
💜   Sun spots on the field before me.
💜   Honeybees buzzing in the seeding lavender in my garden as I watered after my coffee was gone.
💜   The first plump blueberries that burst in my mouth.
💜   Sun-struck yellow evening primroses in the pollinator box overflowing with purple-blue borage.

How could I not allow myself to feel joy? It would have been disrespectful.

__________

  Weekly Wake-up

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like you to live in better conditions.” Hafiz

__________

Back at the house, doing some yoga, trying to relieve the pain in my lower back that’s had me feeling a bit crippled the past few days, I spotted a magnolia blossom at the top of the tall tree my father planted for his southern wife. It usually has just one bloom, but this summer there are two! Nancy, a friend in nearby Portland, wrote me that everything seems more bountiful this year—not just the ugly—like Mother Nature knows we need an extra boost. It would be ungracious to hesitate in allowing ourselves to feel and express joy in it. Indeed, the apple trees below my house are loaded, after a total dearth last year. I guess my mother’s canned applesauce shelf in the basement will get filled again this year. I’d best start stocking a supply of lids.

While I wait for the apples to ripen, I’m gathering up the crumbs of joy, determined to live without hesitation in its abundance.

Where are you finding joy? What makes you come alive? Are you hesitating in letting yourself experience happiness? Leave a comment below!

You can sign up to receive Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo’s Weekly Wake-up here,
and explore her “part art book, part memoir, part spiritual travelogue,”
Threads of Awakening: An American Woman’s Journey into Tibet’s Sacred Textile Art.

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I had the privilege, recently, of writing a blurb for the back cover of Beverly Thorn’s new memoir about caring for her husband living with dementia.

“In the style of Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, Beverly Thorn’s Before I Lose My Own Mind: Navigating Life as a Dementia Caregiver is not only a raw and honest journal of a wife’s walk with her husband as he descends into dementia, but also contains valuable chapter-by-chapter facts, insights, and resources. . . . In this moving, and often humorous, love story, we have a front row seat as the author overcomes her denial and learns to fight for her husband. And for herself.” Gretchen Staebler, author Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver.

I’ve enjoyed chatting with Beverly as she approached publication with Girl Friday Books, encountering many of the challenges I did in publishing—and in caregiving, e.g. caring for yourself and navigating the medical system to advocate for care. I hope you will check it out here.

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I’ve listened twice now to the recently published audiobook of Mother Lode, narrated by award-winning Linda Jones. It’s interesting listening to someone else’s voice reading my story that’s lived in my head in my voice for so long. The second time, I found myself disassociating from it a bit—getting past the inflection not always sounding like me or like my mother—and hearing it as everyone’s story of the challenges, the breakthroughs, the joys of caring for a loved one at end of life, when so much needs to be said that can’t be said, when healing is now or never. I liked it! I hope you will too. Purchase it wherever you get audiobooks. Ask your library to purchase it (you can do it on the library website, it’s easy)! (ISBN: ‎ 978-1647422837, audiobook publication date: May 13, 2025, publisher: Tantor Media).

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COMMENTS!

Where are you finding joy? What makes you come alive? Are you hesitating in letting yourself experience happiness? Leave a comment below!

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