Tag Archives: Joy

Joy Jam and Gifts

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I didn’t get to respond to yesterday’s National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) writing prompt yet, or today’s, so I’ll start there.

“What was the first tangible gift you remember receiving?”

I had to think really hard about this, but I believe it was my Mrs. Beasley doll. The Mattel Company created the Mrs. Beasley doll in 1967, so we were “born” the same year. She was Buffy’s favorite doll on the late 60s TV sitcom Family Affair, and I wanted to be Buffy, imagined I was. Mrs. Beasley wasn’t a baby doll, but rather this strange grandmotherly figure, which seems an odd thing for a little girl to want to play with. Buffy’s doll on the show didn’t talk, (in the sixties, talking dolls were not that common—this was long before Barney the purple dinosaur or Tickle Me Elmo), but mine had a string on the back you could pull and she’d say things like:

  • “Do you want to hear a secret? I know one.”
  • “I do think you’re the nicest little friend I ever had.”
  • “If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for?”
  • “If you were a little smaller, I could rock you to sleep.”
  • “Long ago I was a little girl just like you!”
  • “Speak a little louder, dear, so Mrs. Beasley can hear you.”
  • “Would you like to try on my glasses? You may if you wish.”

Honestly, she was the ugliest little thing: black square framed glasses, gold sock-shoes that covered up oddly large ball-shaped feet, a blue dress/pantsuit thing with white polka dots and gold trim, and bad hair.  And yet, she was so cheerful, had such a happy expression, and I took her with me everywhere I went.  My first official act as a “big girl,” after answering my mom’s very serious “are you sure about this?” many times, was to sell her at a garage sale.  I cried myself to sleep that night.

What was the most disappointing gift you received as a child?

My answer to this prompt isn’t about one single gift, but rather a practice of giving. My dad grew up poor and my mom was from a farm family of twelve kids, and we didn’t have a ton of money either, so my parents were very frugal–and rightly so. I learned a lot from them about simplicity and minimalism that I am so grateful for now, but as a kid, being so careful didn’t seem quite as joyful.

Sometimes in the fall, during the back to school season when all the winter coats would go on sale for 50% off, my mom would take us in to pick out a coat.  However, we didn’t get to keep it just yet.  She packed it away to save for Christmas.  The sense of anticipation on Christmas morning when you opened that package was disappointed by the recognition of the item you helped pick out and already knew about.  It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the gift, it was just that I missed the surprise.

Joy Jam: What were the 3-5 things that gave you joy this week?

This prompt comes every Friday from Louise Gale and her new project, “your heART makes a difference,” and the stated purpose is to “radiate the energy of gratitude, thankfulness and celebration of everything that gave us joy this week. Together we will help send positive energy out into the world.” You should join us! The trouble I always have with this prompt is there are more than 3-5 things, so I have to save a few to add to my Monday “Something Good” post.

1. Shopping for “my” Pine Ridge kids. I wrote about the Pine Ridge Holiday Gift Project the other day, and a few days after that in my Monday “Something Good” post.  I magically got assigned the same two kids this year, a five year old girl and a 10 year old boy. I typically don’t really like shopping, but love giving gifts, and buying for these two, now for the second year in a row, makes my heart so full.  A football, flashlights, mittens, hats, socks, soft cuddle blankets, a memory game, silly putty, coloring books, and crayons. I hope these material things can somehow carry all the love I feel for them, somehow communicate all the good I wish for them, these kids I have never met.

2. Walking the dogs Thursday morning with Eric in the snow. Typically, Eric and I don’t walk the dogs together in the morning during the week, but this Thursday, Eric came with us on “my” day. There hasn’t been enough snow yet this year for me to be tired of it, and I miss Eric during the week because we work and don’t seem to get to see each other much, and we had the park all to ourselves.  It felt like we were on vacation.

3. Conferencing with my students. Considering I did this for eight hours straight on Tuesday and didn’t leave campus until 8 pm, you’d think I’d complain, but I have such good students this semester! They make me laugh, make me feel useful when I can help them or make them feel better, have such great and interesting ideas, and like we all do, generate so much unnecessary suffering for themselves. I wish the best for them. Maybe they will save the world.

4. A new pack of metallic markers in fabulous colors. I can’t wait to use these.

5. Rediscovering my knee length sweater. It is so warm and soft, and a bit more stylish than my purple fleece bathrobe.  I can feel like I am lounging, but still look like I am dressed.

  • Wishing you gifts and so much joy!

What I’ve Learned While on Vacation

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I didn’t take the whole week off, but most of it. I gave myself permission to be myself, to do the things that seemed right and that made me happy. Here’s what I’ve learned this week:

I am a joyful and happy person.

Yes, I get sad, and I can also be worried, anxious, angry, confused, and depressed, but mostly I am grateful. In fact, on a walk we took the other day, I told Eric that I was happier than I’d been in at least the last seven years, maybe ten. The more I think about it, other than those innocent moments of bliss in childhood or the moment when I realized that Eric loved and wanted me as much as I loved and wanted him, I might be happier now than I have ever been in my whole life, (and slightly superstitious about saying that out loud).

Thinking about this earlier, I started to cry–this small and grand shift, moving towards giving and opening and creating instead of hoarding or stealing or numbing out, is simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking. This is who I could have been all the time, if only I’d made the choice to stop generating my own suffering. Knowing this was there all along but that I denied it is devastating.  I chose not to be loved, to be actively unlovable, when love was there waiting all along.

I kept the door locked, the porch light off and the curtains closed, and pretended not to be home. That time I spent hiding, avoiding, denying was not wasted, however. I know I had to understand what that felt like from the inside to gain the wisdom and compassion I have now.

I have everything I need.

I am reading “Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything” by Geneen Roth. In it, she says “You already have everything you need to be content. Your real work…is to do whatever it takes to realize that.” Amen.

I am capable of keeping up.

I can keep my house clean, get the laundry done, keep clean sheets on the bed, pay the bills, do various other chores as necessary, take care of my dogs, etc. I am not lazy or disorganized when I don’t–I am overwhelmed and have too much going on and am tired. I can keep up, but I first need to slow down.

I can have a normal relationship with food.

Okay, confession time, (can’t believe I am going to finally do this). If you haven’t already figured it out, I have food “issues.” I am a compulsive eater, a highly functioning food addict, (highly functioning because I am able to keep my weight relatively workable through lots of exercise, and my addiction doesn’t end up leading to big consequences, like making me unable to keep a job or maintain relationships). According to the WebMB page on food addiction, the characteristics of food addicts can include:

  • Being obsessed and/or preoccupied with food.
  • Having a lack of self-control when it comes to food.
  • Having a compulsion about food in which eating results in a cycle of binging despite negative consequences.
  • Remembering a sense of pleasure and/or comfort with food and being unable to stop using food to create a sense of pleasure and comfort.
  • Having a need to eat which results in a physical craving.

The following are questions that potential food addicts may ask themselves:

  • Have I tried but failed to control my eating? [Me: “I can make it work for a while, but yes.  It goes like this: control and deprivation, which leads to a feeling of scarcity and panic and frustration and irritation that leads to a binge, which brings up feelings of shame, which leads back to the enforcement of punishment and control–round and round it goes.”]
  • Do I find myself hiding food or secretly binging? [Me: “yes”]
  • Do I have feelings of guilt or remorse after eating? [Me: “ugh…yes”]
  • Do I eat because of emotions? [Me: “Yes!”]
  • Is my weight affecting my way of life? [Me: “I can manage it for the most part through exercise, but yes”]

So, while that is all slightly depressing, maybe a bit discouraging, this is what I know: I can have a normal relationship with food. Inviting Rachel W. Cole out to facilitate a “The Well-Fed Woman Mini-Retreatshop,” reading “Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything” by Geneen Roth, and confessing to you, kind and gentle reader, are all things that make me trust this can be true.

I can get enough exercise and rest.

To me, these are two sides of the same coin. I need to move, and then I need to rest, and I need to have a balance of the two. This is possible, even easy.

I enjoy being alone some of the time.

Okay, maybe I enjoy being alone a lot of the time. But, I love, love, love my little house–my back yard, my reading chair by the front window, my meditation cushion and shrine, my art studio, the walls covered in quilts made by my aunt and painted various colors of jade (greens, blues, purples, honey browns, and creamy whites), my shelves of books, the insane number of dog beds and toys, the two couches we need so there is plenty of room for everyone to cuddle at night–my home. Eric is my best friend, and I adore my two (three) dogs.

I have work and practices that I truly love.

The work I get paid for is not what I love. Instead, it is the research, service, reading and writing I do on my own time. Practice–doing yoga, walking dogs, writing, and meditation/prayer every day–is easy and joyful, filled with purpose and meaning.

I know who I am.

And right now, I am so in love with her. I have made new promises, and I am showing up. Sometimes I fall into those same old patterns, the denial, the refusal, the fight, the flight, the freeze, but I am trying. I want more than almost anything to be dependable, loving and kind.