Grief has been teaching me that joy is necessary to soften and feel the pain of losses that feel unsurvivable. As we pass the first day of Fall at the cross quarter day of August 6th (according to Chinese medicine) I am feeling the descent to the Winter Solstice more sharply marked by the shorter days changing light and humidity levels in North Carolina and the approach of the start of school. And I miss Andres and what might have been if he were alive.
I think of joy as a spontaneous emotion that bubbles up and over as if the sheer force of it can not be contained in a confined space. Like the science experiment my son and I just executed where we mixed baking soda, liquid soap, vinegar and food coloring to produce a volcanic explosion of color and bubbles. Beautiful, fleeting, that has a life of its own. Discipline can feel rigid. It is training in a code of behavior and requires consistency, commitment, and focus. Pairing it with the open vulnerability of joy seems a bit like a paradox. And I love the pairing of things that seem contradictory, that require imagination and curiosity to appreciate their mutual interdependence.
One of the things I have learned in parenting is that contained spaces are very conducive for fostering moments of joy. Kids need boundaries, a start time and an end time to creative play. Small kids (all humans really) have notable expiration times. When you are hungry, tired, thirsty, played out, done. One of the parts of gathering together with kids that I find most comforting and soothing are the moments when something falls apart a little, Someone is sad or upset. A disagreement over a beloved toy, a scrape, a hurt feeling. Those moments seem to always come when you gather kids together to play. You can have, literally the best day ever, even with moments of hurt, upset, and grumpy, little and big, interspersed.
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