joy in the new year.
“Every day, God gives us the sun - and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist - that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists - a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.
Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us to change ands ens of off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments - but all of this is transitory; it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.”
From By the River Piedra I Set Down and Wept, I first read these words by Paulo Coelho in 2014, at a time when I desperately needed them. They’ve whispered in my ear nearly every day since March.
The world has thrown, and will continue to throw, devastation in our path. An insistence on joy does not cancel that out. It does not invalidate the struggles and hardship we have individually and collectively faced this year, or all the years.
To me, this insistence on joy is the smallest, tiniest flame that stays lit in the darkest moments. It is gratitude. It is mean-making. It is tapping in to the one indestructible corner of your heart when the entire world is crumbling around you.
It is how we continue to inhale and open our eyes to each new day.
It is how we continue to exhale and sink into peace amid the chaos.
It is Jack Gilbert’s stubborn gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
It is Walt Whitman’s knowing of nothing else but miracles.
It is Ross Gay’s wilderness.
Wishing you joyous conquest in the coming year.
