Comfort and Joy
Happy Holidays friends! I don’t always write holiday posts but this time I had some kind of revelation that I’d like to share just in case some of you out there are feeling a little more salty than cheery this year. Mind you, I have no reason to feel salty either, I believe it’s actually a genetic disposition that some how couples with a brilliant sense of optimism and a darkly humorous cynicism. Yes, those things CAN coexist, my family is living proof. Stop by for the Christmas Grab Bag and you’ll witness this phenomenon. Maybe it’s a characteristic of highly creative people but it’s just darn hard to conjure emotions when it’s seasonally appropriate.
In contemplating my discontent while I should be happily indulging personal time, I wonder why this saltiness? What do I need, why can’t I be content? Everything is great, why can’t I just BE happy. I fuss and fidget in my comfy chair by the Christmas tree. Then I get up and get tea, and I burrow back into my blankets and then I need my book. I get comfy again and then I can’t settle into my book or I need to go to the bathroom. Like an old badger, I’m just a harmless grump bump without a cause. Please say this sounds familiar? During the week I feel oddly tired. I’m never tired, in fact I’m pretty sure I have another genetic disposition which I call “the worms”; they can cause insomnia but when harnessed properly, can achieve highly productive equilibrium.
In spite of my fussiness, the words that keep popping up in my head this season are “Comfort and Joy”. I know the words are trite enough, I see them on all sorts of products and decor. However, my grandmother’s name is Joy and she totally embodies it’s spirit. So I thought on these words, I want comfort and I want joy. How do we define the terms of these sensations? If you described it, what would it be? What things bring those feelings about? Do they always, or just sometimes? Why the difference? Defining what brings you joy is the first step to getting it. Right?
On one particularly whimpering morning as I went through my routine, I noticed my morning run improved my mind a smidge, I noticed the hot shower made me happy for a second, my quilted hoodie from a Biergarten in Munich with my red owl Christmas pajama bottoms, my hot coffee, the silence, the hour to myself before the world wakes up. Mostly I noticed that the majority of my happy things made me feel warm. I want the daily office experience that is equal to pulling out blankets from the dryer and flopping down inside them on a carpeted floor. What is the office equivalent to this? As I boarded the bus I listlessly concluded, it must be a little cup of something…a little cup of joy.
Now, I’m not much of a Starbucks girl, my favorite coffee shop in Mid-Town Manhattan is Cafe Grumpy. (I know, this is terribly ironic, you just CAN’T make this stuff up.) Even still, my Midwestern up bringing will simply not allow me to buy coffee from a shop daily when I can make it at home. My sensibilities will remind me with each purchase, that I can invest yearly $1,500 that the average New Yorker spends on to-go coffee. When my limited math skills attempt to realize the exponential value of that deposit into my RothIRA, that little cup of joy turns into foolishness. Can you say “Kill Joy?” Yep, total buzz kill nurtured into my value system from infancy. That’s OK though, I’ll be HAPPIER when I’m 70. Right?
Listen though, this is when my Christmas miracle happened! Feeling punchy I invited my co-worker to “Walkabout” on lunch. “Walkabout“, historically, is a journey young indigenous Australian males take to make a spiritual transition into manhood. We use it to vent and whine so we can act like grown ups by the time we get back to the office. Also, I needed to find a gift for my mom.
Luckily there are some holiday markets near the office so we headed that direction to find something for mum. There was a beacon among the string of vendors in the form of an Airstream. Can you guess what they were giving away?
Little glasses of joy! Now, you can say this is a trivial amount of beer and whatever you want about coincidence. Earlier that morning I was so focused on defining joy. When I got on that bus with the final thought on the question, it was, “a little cup of…something”. It warmed my nose and I got to keep the glass, all for taking a selfie and posting it with a hashtag #givebeautifully.
Photo by @senadolski
Little miracles tend to be trivial in the grand picture of things, at least as I’ve experienced them. They are also HUGE; they are the universe or God or what ever you like to believe, WINKING at you. It says, “I see you, I hear you”. It really is the LITTLE things. “It’s nickles and dimes that build fortunes, not large deposits.” (as we learned in my coffee economics lesson earlier). If you still think I’m turning a marketing campaign into an act of universal connection pay attention to this! I looked in my wallet and noticed I had a Cafe Grumpy punch card with a free drink on it. Now, I told you I very rarely go to a coffee shop. I don’t know when I got 10 punches but I got my next little cup of warm Christmas joy the following morning, for free.
I’m running with this folks! I’m running with it all the way through the new year. Have you ever noticed how much we associate happiness and contentment with beverages? Look at this: my Saturday morning reading session is accompanied with two pots of tea.
Then I make another pot and I go paint or sketch.
My reflective evenings at Wine-o-Clock are accompanied by red wine and journal writing in my thinking corner.
When I’m sick I make my Rooibos tea in this cup and keep more hot water in the tumbler next to it.
Comfort and joy can be found in tiny moments if we define them and observe them when they happen. I do believe that in order to get what you want, you must know what it is; define those terms. If you can define those terms, maybe the universe will hear you and you’ll get a little wink. “Ask and ye shall receive” because the universe will #givebeautifully if you whisper in it’s ear just what is beautiful to you.
