Joy in January

My Dears,

I hope January is okay. I hope it’s great, I suppose. My January has been a little dark so I think I am being reserved in my hopes for you, but that’s weird. I hope things for you are amazing. And if they aren’t now, I hope they start to swing up.

On the darkness: Remember how I told you in my last post that I almost never get sick? I got sick. My whole family was sick for a good chunk of break. We were never dangerously ill but it’s always a little scary to me. I often take illness out to its extremes in my head and start to feel existentially anxious, worried about this whole mortality situation. January is tricky for mortality; there’s an uptick in death statistics during the two weeks following Christmas and I think I can feel that in the air. And man, politics are hard. I’m worried about the world.

I also have a dear friend who is very sick. Cancer hit her like a mushroom, puffing spores throughout her body. Within days, it took over her belly so the surgeons removed most of her middle. She’s fierce and all but damn, that’s scary for her and all the love that surrounds her. And then my community lost Baby Boy Beckett. He was 2 ½ and so cute and such a firecracker. No one expected it and afterwards, no one could quite explain. It was sudden and strange, leaving our whole town bereft. Deeply sad and deeply scared.

But this is the thing about these scary and tragic encounters, my friend with cancer is still pretty much the same. She’s a rabble-rousing, truth-calling, deeply hopeful lover of life. This shouldn’t have surprised me, that she would keep all of these phenomenal qualities. I don’t know if it’s her choice. She has a loving partner and a little girl. She takes care of people. Maybe she doesn’t really have a choice but to plow ahead. In either case, seeing her fierceness, feeling her keeping on, gathering her confidence and mixing it with my hope, I have a sense of life’s inevitability. Of course she’ll be fine and so will I.

And I feel her joy at having this time. Joy is tough. What vulnerability it takes to stand at the face of death and claim happiness. I am blown away by that commitment to joy, by choice or by necessity, with religion or without. And I commit to the joy, even as my worry and sadness are trying to point me in a different direction. I’m standing further away from that chasm of death, perhaps. One would think that would make it easier for me to grasp my time with a joyous resolution, but it feels a little hard still, maybe because when we are further away, we focus on the trivialities in the absence of bigger. Strange that the folks in the real fight so often carry the joy.

I went to Beckett’s memorial. The whole town waited in a serpentine line at the funeral home. We were there for hours. Beckett’s Mama and Dad held the line from 2 to 4, and then they were scheduled to see more people from 6 to 8. I didn’t even get to the head of the line until 4:30 so I imagine they went straight through, greeting people, publicly considering the loss of their precious baby for hours and hours. When I arrived at the front to see the mom, my friend, to give her a hug, it was almost as if I were seeing her on the fields around the school or in the auditorium. Though the sadness was palpable in every being in that funeral home, she still carried her exuberance; she is a marvelously shiny and exuberant person. I’m not sure she had a choice, in that moment. She has three girls and the whole town, watching, wondering how to be. She led us away from her baby’s death and back into his life, her life, the life of her girls. Joy is this thing we have to do, even if it is the most terrifying step. Even with death staring at all of us, and staring especially hard in January, we have to commit to joy, if we can, in order to honor the preciousness of life.

Considering the vulnerability and the precariousness, I have a list. Lists make things simpler. Print it and check off items if you’d like. Add some. I made this for my Dad’s 80th birthday so there are 80 things. Mmm, 84 I guess. I keep adding. Be fierce my people, for Beckett, for his Mama, for my friend, for my dad, for your community. Grab some joy and project it out!

1. Find a stream, even if it’s almost frozen over. Throw some rocks in. See if you can skip them. See how many skips you can get.

2. Grow herbs—basil, oregano, thyme, mint. If it’s winter where you are, put the seeds in a window in little pots. The terracotta ones look cute but don’t get hung up. Use anything! Grow a lot, even if it feels like a stupid amount. Abundance. If you can’t find seeds, I have some. Let me know.

3. Buy something at a farmer’s market or one of those kiosks in the center of the mall from someone who seems a little desperate, even if you’re not sure you want the thing. Engage about that fabulous item, especially if it doesn’t have a lot of plastic to it.

4. Yelp a highly rated restaurant in a nearby city and make a special trip to try it out, this week. Yes, go eat there by next Thursday.

5. Notice at least one full breath every time you put your keys in the car ignition. Breaths are really great.

6. Order a fancy coffee drink that you have never ordered like a macchiato or something. Really mix it up. Feel a little wild to yourself. Or maybe just indulgent. They’re expensive. Whatever, just this one time.

7. Make a Bolognese sauce and fancy yourself the most romantic creature on the earth. Smell the sauce as you cook. Marcella Hazan has an amazing recipe that takes a long time to make; google it. This will work great. If you’re vegetarian and you don’t have a romantic sauce recipe, write me. I’ll send a sauce recipe from my grandma. The key is good tomatoes. You must use good tomatoes.

8. While you’re at it, kiss someone like that. Romantic. A partner, a lover, your dog. But maybe not romantic—like if it’s your dog. Still, kiss, especially if you haven’t for a while. Awkward is just fine.

9. Go to a lecture at a nearby college. Any lecture, even if you doubt you’ll be remotely interested in the topic. You might be surprised.

10. Watch a play at a theater. Search if you aren’t sure you have a theater. I’m sure there’s a place.

11. Get to NYC. Even better if you go with someone and you go on a whim and find a last minute hotel while the other one is driving. You can use the Hotel Tonight app. Or use the internet to find a cheap flight. Go! If you’re scared and not sure how, let’s talk. I’ll walk you through it.

12. Meditate for 10 minutes, 3 days in a row and then go outside and pick the first flower or leaf (coniferous or deciduous) you can find. Marvel!

13. Say the Hail Mary ten times in a row and remember every single memory you have of your Great Aunts or Grandma. I was raised Catholic so this works for me. But feel free to use a tradition from your past or your present or, just as lovely, find a ritual from another religion. Don’t make yourself feel blasphemous, just empathetic with the hope that comes from belief, even if it isn’t your personal belief.

14. Go to the movies and sneak in a second movie after the first. I never do anything illegal. I feel too guilty to even consider (except for political purposes—no hesitation). But I did sneak into a second movie once. I still feel a little edgy.

15. Go to a museum you’ve never explored. Tilt your head when you look at an item. Try to notice if other people are noticing you tilting your head.

16. Cry earnestly at something really beautiful. If the tears don’t come, that’s okay. Just feel them inside of you.

17. Buy the most expensive, decadent butter you have ever seen and eat it on a baguette or a piece of fabulous toast. Maybe even sprinkle some salt crystals on it—fancy salt that makes bigger crystals, if possible.

18. Tell someone that you love their glasses and someone else that you love their shoes.

19. Look at the clouds for a while.

20. Tell the sun thank you, out loud. It’s okay if no one else is around.

21. Tell a funny personal story to someone you’ve just met, a little bit before that sort of sharing feels appropriate. Like to your waiter or the oil change person.

22. Find a stand or a market that sells poke bowls. They are so good. Order one.

23. Have a really long conversation with a dog when no one else is around.

24. Find a frog and pick it up. Hold it low to the ground though so it doesn’t fall. This will probably have to wait for spring. There’s time.

25. Buy a new beer or, even better, a sample pack of beers and then try each one out, maybe through time or all at once, really figuring out what you like and don’t like about each one. If you don’t drink alcohol, try bubbly water! Totally refreshing.

26. Smell flowers, anywhere—open field, botanical garden, Costco.

27. Try to draw something.

28. Make a smoothie with at least 6 ingredients. Here is one that I love but you might hate: carrots, ginger, apple, lemon, banana, tumeric, chia, flax, cayenne. Put in a ton of ginger and cayenne so it almost makes you choke.

29. Have tea.

30. Find a wild animal. Watch it as if Jane Goodall were standing next to you. Squirrels and ants count.

31. The next time you see a really, really fancy car and strangers are taking pictures of it, walk up to the driver-side door, go for the handle (but don’t really touch it because you might set off an alarm), glare at the people taking pictures, and then tell them that you’re kidding. It’s so funny!

32. Get a thing of bubbles when you go to the grocery store and blow them out your car window. Or use them when you get home, if that feels more comfortable.

33. Try to imagine what aliens look like. Think super broadly outside of any Star Wars preconceptions. Hope that we find some in our lifetimes.

34. Buy a ton of bok choy and make two different recipes with it.

35. Spiralize.

36. Get a fancy bar of chocolate for dessert one night. It should be expensive. Eat it slowly with red wine, coffee, or milk.

37. Roll down both windows and blare the radio. Even better if you can sing along. And you must be with someone else in the car. Otherwise people might think you’re weird.

38. Leave a message in a library book. This always happens in movies but never in real life, not in my real life yet, anyway. Give it a shot. Give it ten shots.

39. Moo at cows.

40. Yell “Marco” in a grocery store. Like in Marco Polo—a game you play in the pool. This was Rio’s idea.

41. Go to Iceland for the weekend. Sometimes tickets are really cheap. Only take outdoorsy hiking-ish clothes. You might see the northern lights but I hear you have to use an app to look at them which is a little disappointing.

42. Commit right now to seeing the next full solar eclipse. It’s happening pretty soon—like in a few years. Maybe make reservations already.

43. Buy a meaningful but tiny (so they don’t think it’s weird) gift for one of your acquaintances.

44. Watch a river for a while.

45. Go for a walk in the rain. You could even wear boots and step in puddles.

46. Go outside during a lightning storm but don’t hold anything metal. And make sure you’re shorter than the stuff around you.

47. Buy all the ingredients you ever wanted for oatmeal—steel cut oats of course. Like really fancy dried fruit, fresh fruit, and/or whole cream. Make yourself a decadent oatmeal breakfast.

48. Smell the dead worms after a rainstorm. The manure with the first warm weather. A skunk. Wonder about how those smells are just a little bit nice.

49. Go several hours without your phone. Just leave it in some corner of your house and ignore it, don’t worry about it, who cares.

50. Do dishes with music from your coolest era. You can use Pandora or Spotify to put in a decade I bet.

51. Hang out with a kid, yours or someone else’s. You need no agenda. The kid will guide you. Aren’t they profound for being so small?

52. Figure out how to make clafoutis or poached pears, with real whipped cream, you know, that you whip up with a beater.

53. Go to the nearest lobster pound. This might take a weekend. It’s okay if it does.

54. Lie down on hot cement. Feel the warmth on the back of your arms and legs.

55. Shop for a piece of clothing that makes you feel cool—like a T-shirt or skater shoes or sunglasses or a hat.

56. Learn something. Some basics of a foreign language or computer code or the difference between yams and sweet potatoes but learn it. Seek an answer and go until you get it.

57. Wear a cologne or perfume you used to wear. If you don’t own it, you can probably find it at a department store make-up counter.

58. Read a hard book or a classic that you’ve never read. Moby Dick maybe or the Brothers Karamazov. They often aren’t as hard or as classic as you envision them to be. The book becomes part of your story.

59. Go out for Ethiopian. You know, where you can eat the spongy bread with your hands. Search “Ethiopian food near me.”

60. Say “thank you,” so simply, when you get a compliment. Nothing else.

61. When you wake up, explain to yourself or someone near you that it is going to be an unbelievable day—the best day ever. Really an absolutely amazing day. You don’t have to do this every day but just a few times a week maybe. Every day can’t be that good.

62. Study up for trivia night. Practice really hard. Buy manuals or find good tips online. Don’t tell anyone. Act like it’s all just up there.

63. Run a road race. Throw your arms into the air when you cross the finish line. Maybe drop to your knees and put your head in your hands. Feel glory, even if you’re last.

64. Go on a picnic. If you have one of those baskets with a place for wine and plastic wine glasses, good on you.

65. Pick out an animal that speaks to you. Think about this selection hard over a number of days. Seek out and buy a little talisman/totem/fetish item of this animal. Put it in your pocket or your computer bag or next to your bed or in a drawer or on a chain. Know that it is there, watching out for you, representing you. Take this seriously.

66. Sleep until 10am one day. Stay in bed. You can get out to pee I guess but get right back in. Reading is okay but neither encouraged nor discouraged.

67. Become seriously obsessed with one small facet of environmental conscientiousness. Proselytize and never break your code.

68. Buy a new body wash that smells amazing, or a loofah, or a shampoo bar—maybe that could be one of your environment things.

69. Put something off, maybe for good. It’s fine. We were going to have this huge dormitory swap/garage sale when I worked in a college. People knew about it and seemed mildly interested. And then we just didn’t do it. No one noticed. Revelatory!

70. Honk a code in a parking garage that demands other cars to answer. You know, “beep beep beep beep beep.” “Beep beep.”

71. Buy chips the next time you go on a road trip, or better yet, a Slurpee. If you do get the Slurpee, put the lid on first (the rounded lids—no rookie mistakes in grabbing the flat ones) and don’t overfill!

72. Cry really, really hard about something sad. Dig into the sadness and let your whole body feel it completely. Let that sadness join you with all the other sadness feelers in the world. Walk away connected and alive.

73. Find a great music blog of contemporary stuff. Listen to the selections. Make yourself a playlist. Share it with your daughter, your mom, your brother, your friend.

74. Get rid of a kitchen tool that is irritating like a knife that doesn’t cut well. Buy a new thing that is super high quality. Appreciate it every day.

75. Ask a lot of questions.

76. Listen with every fiber of your body. Don’t worry about the response. Don’t even let yourself go there. Just listen.

77. Do something really scary—something that you think your body can’t handle or your relationship can’t handle or your mind can’t handle or your heart can’t handle. Walk into it with courage and find the depth.

78. Play a board game. Invite some friends over maybe.

79. Sled. Just once if that’s all you feel like doing but you must sled. You can get it done here if you don’t feel like buying a sled.

80. Lie on the edge of a boat or dock so your face is hanging over into the water. Look at the water for a long time, like at least three minutes, and imagine that a shark is going to come up and eat your face. Scary, eh?

81. Send a piece of writing to one of your favorite magazines. Send something kind of crappy first just so you get an idea about the process then start working on something really good.

82. Write with complete authenticity. Be too real. Don’t let anyone read it. Burn it if you have to. Unless you feel like it’s so, so good you have to share. Maybe share it with the magazine above.

83. Live fully.

84. Love desperately.