So Much Joy.

I get so much joy out of

• The faux opal and silver ring that came out of a bath bomb.
• Cheap ballpoints that write beautifully.
• Anyone telling me that Josh and I are doing well with Oliver. We need all the encouragement we can get.
• Eye contact and hugs with both arms from Oliver.
• Forgetting how silly my laugh can sound.
• A kind word about my blogs from someone I never would have expected the posts.
• Liking every nail polish in the set.
• One of my parents saying or writing, "I'm proud of you."
• Putting on sweats after a cold swim. 
• Finding out that my brother liked the book I sent him for his birthday.
• Figuring out what to wear to a show.
• Just cinnamon toast for dinner.

Delight! in January and February.

Delight is my word for 2017. So I want to check in and make sure I'm seeking, creating, and noticing it. Here's a small list of delights:

• Writing in a journal with hearts all over the cover. 
• Glitter stickers that make a delightful mess. 
• A large, golden Beauty and the Beast journal I plan to use in March.
• Passengers, a romantic sci-fi movie I loved.
• The Space between Us, also a sci-fi romance that I look forward to seeing again.
• Using a pen with an unexpected shade of pink.
• Seeing a wild musical with Bruce.
• Making plans to see Mom.
• Finding the gorgeous green earrings I'd lost.
• Receiving my first $10 Birchbox so quickly.
• Ibuprofen's immediately wiping out my jaw pain.
• Finding my black top with black beads and gold sequins.
• Allowing myself to watch funny videos on YouTube.
• Watching trailers for new movies I might actually go see.
• Wearing my pretty scarves.
• Oliver's singing and dancing with me to showtunes every morning as I get ready.
• A massage from Josh that can distract me from pain.
• Seeing fewer bills in the mail.
• Two dudes telling me daily that I'm beautiful.
• Dressing up for a show with a black and gold brocade jacket I found for $16 at Old Navy. 
• Josh's putting up tiny glowing stars on Oliver's ceiling and, at bedtime, Oliver's telling me to "Look at the stars!"

At My Age.

I've recently seen two great movies. One made me feel older; the other made me feel younger.

And I'm thinking that I should never ask to be older or younger. I should play with what I have. Anyone older than I would say I'm still young, but I also have a massive responsibility to keep myself well. Gathering wisdom, gathering peace, and gathering delight (There's that word of the year!) are incredibly important tasks. Fill the attic and the basement. Fill the freezer in the garage--not to hoard but to keep a steady supply on the rough days.

One of my favorite quotations (I may be paraphrasing badly) is from Iris Murdoch: "The secret of a happy life is continuous small treats."

The texture of the towels you use every day.
A pair of just-right earrings you haven't worn in months.
A postcard to send--touching someone's heart with about 3 minutes of effort.

The treats, the delights, don't have to be new. They don't have to be concrete objects. Notice the look on your best friend's face when you can tell that you've made all of his or her worry and stress disappear for those moments.

Even now, I don't have a great many moments free from fear, but I cherish them. I keep them.

As for wisdom, it just suddenly appears nose-to-nose with me.

And I'd better pay attention.

Someone Keeps Buying Them.

I love going to Barnes and looking at the journals, especially when I find one I've never seen before. It's a thrill even if it's not a journal I would buy. It means people are still buying jounals and gifts to themselves or others.

And that means that to some degree, people still believe in the power of scribbling. They must believe that a person can heal inner damage, develop a writing talent, spill secrets, or just pass the time pleasurably in a book waiting for the person's words. Something pretty and sturdy and completely one's own--what object could be more soothing?

I used to think I'd never be able to fill up a journal. Now I've done it 163 times over the last 17 years. Filling a whole notebook or journal with one's words (and drawings, quotations, or anything) is such an empowering experience. It always feels awesome, whether it takes two weeks (as it did when I was a manic 16-year-old) or two years.

Journaling has kept me tethered to Earth. It has helped me when my hold on reality was weak. It has calmed my anxiety and accepted my grief again and again. It changes the way I look at and experience the world because I'm thinking of how I'll describe it in my journal, which will enhance my delight or soften my fear. Journaling is one of the elements that may have kept me alive this long. And I've held onto it instead of pushing it away. It is one of the strongest, purest loves of my life.

Someone knows some of this intuitively (or maybe from experience) and wants that help (and that joy!) for himself or herself or for someone else who just might be open to a journaling life.

So I'll keep going to the journal section, greeting the journals I'll never want to buy, the ones I'll never think I can afford, and the twins of ones I've already written in or that are waiting in a green polka-dot box under my bed. And sometimes, I see something new and feel glad that whether or not people are scribbling, they are seeing a journal's potential and buying it as a gift or as a gift to themselves.

"Mixing Paints on Dinner Plates."

--Jennifer McMahon, Dismantled

This book was thrilling and confusing, but the memory of this image is clear. This moment in the book captured, for me, an important skill that an artist (and I include writers in this, as well as many other artists that I know too little about) must have or develop. These girls managed to get the paint but apparently couldn't afford or justify wooden palettes. Yet the palette is such a strong image representing the artist, perhaps as much so as the easel. But artists are also, supposedly, resourceful, irreverent, and unpredictable. I also notice the symbolism in the objects, intentionally or unintentionally stating that basic human needs (like food) are inferior to the demands of art.

Writing is different in that it doesn't require the same kind of physical labor (okay, that's up for debate), and the tools are simpler. For scribbling (writing practice), I just need a notebook and a couple of pens. I upgrade those supplies because I prefer hardcover journals and a rainbow of pens in many forms. When I want to do product writing (a poem, a story), I go to the laptop, which most writers have or have access to.

But this mixing paints on dinner plates is an image that still grabs me. I like to search for common threads among all kinds of artists.

Stamps and Stickers.

Some of my favorite memories are of shopping for stickers and rubber stamps with my Nanna. I'm not sure how old I was...10-14? Scrapbooking was so popular then, so a lot of related shops popped up. One shop we visited was in what seemed like a cute little retail village.

I think about those outings whenever I put stickers in my journal. The ones I bought (I remember saving up sometimes) or that Nanna gave me are long gone, following the narrative of my life through their corners on old journal pages. I do, however, still have a lot of stamps from that time. They live in a hot pink box and in a pink tin with black chandeliers on it.

Stickers are my favorite, but I do love stamps--beautiful, reusable. I even got some in my stocking last Christmas! And last night, I tried using stamps instead of stickers in a journal. Most of them turned out well.

I remember the wonder of all those designs. Nanna gave me another source of beauty and creativity, and my life has some more bright-bright spots because of it.

Book Seasons.

Some years ago, I was trying to write short stories and realized that I had actually read very few volumes of stories. I love those I'd read at Queens, but I knew I was far from prepared to write my own.

So I decided to have a "short story summer." I read lots of different books, but I focused on short stories. I bought them used and checked them out from the library's new releases. Josh bought me a volume for my birthday and wrote in it: "For your short story summer."

So now, I realize that I've not read many short stories lately. So I want to bring back the short story summer but also add

• The Children's Lit Winter
• The Young Adult Spring
• The Memoir/Diary Fall

I won't limit myself to these, but they will be my focus. I should be reading novels and poetry all the time.

The Children's Lit focus starts now!