Today..

Few moments....

I have very few moments of true joy in my memories. I could probably list them all here. True joy. And I’m not speaking of the usual list of things like the day you get married or your children are born or things like that.

Sometimes it comes out of nowhere. Most of my moments of true joy are connected to music in some way. Parked in a dark and empty parking lot waiting for Jo-ry to come out of his job at 1am. Playing the radio loudly and as he walks out, he hears the song, released when he was just a toddler, and he starts dancing. I’m laughing, get out of the car and dance too. Fifty yards apart, dancing silly to Lionel Ritchie. Pure joy. Unexpected joy.

That’s the best part of life. Those planned vacations and birthdays and holidays, they rarely bring me the pure joy that breaks through the grey and beams a ray of light on my soul.  

But the unexpected road trip. The unplanned blizzard that allowed me to drive my kids up to Flag to see snow for the first time they could remember, the unplanned trip Cheryl and I took in the middle of the night to the Oregon Coast for three days. Standing on a beach in Newport, tears in my eyes, the beauty so incredible. Pure joy.

The road trip I called in sick for, or maybe I said that I had a funeral to go to? Oh, that’s dark! 

Me, Cheryl, Scott driving and my brother. Going to get Scott’s things from the home he’d just shared with his ex-wife. We drank wine coolers and played the music loud. Danced. Laughed at stupid jokes.. You have a point there, and if you combed your hair differently you wouldn’t even notice. 

Standing at a Bryan Adams concert, pinkies entwined. My heart races and I can’t even tell which song it was. But I can remember how the pinky felt.

Laying in the sand at Bear Lake. Jack and Diane plays on the boom box. Rob grabs my hand, squats down, I get on his shoulders and we go into the water to chicken fight with two friends. 

Dancing on Disney Walk to Boys to Men at 1am. Twinkling lights. No one around. 

Me, the boy, YM singing Ballroom Blitz on the ride home from Oklahoma in the middle of the night.

Taking my newborn grandson into my arms for the first time and he snuggles his head into my chest and squeaks tiny little squeaks of comfort until he falls back asleep letting me kiss is tiny head. From the pictures he doesn’t appear just how tiny he is. My palm larger than his head. His earlobes so miniscule  and perfect. Perfection. Here’s a miracle, ready? You might not have ever realized this before....but any child of your daughter ( if you’re a woman) you carried in your womb as well because a girl fetus gets all the eggs she will ever get while in her mother’s womb, therefore, created by the grandmother. This boy, carried in my womb first, created by me, first. As I hold him I cry tears of real and true joy at the miracle that he is. His perfectness. Him without any mistakes or regrets. Him without any scars on his body or heart. Him, all trust, no one has broken a promise or his heart or his will or his pride or determination or dreams. Full of the future. Only knows love and adoration and compassion and commitment. 

Joy in its purest form is better than anything else in the world. It is the brightest and shiniest parts of love. 

It’s a blessing to know joy. It’s more of a blessing to recognize it when it happens. To feel the memory take hold with its warmth. To take in the sounds, smells and environment. Warm night, cold day, loud music, cramped car, warm sand, skin, the smell of a neck, the air drums, the dancing like no one is watching.

Grand children. Born from you through your offspring. Amazing.

Nothing bad will be written today. Just joy today. 

Me