Do Joy
So Idaho gal leaves for the weekend, gone away with high-schoolers for church camp, which should earn her the Congressional Medal of Honor or a bottle of wine, or both, and in her good-doing I am left with minion 1 and minion 2, whose little, blond, caffeinated heads bob and weave around the house, their still developing selves spinning out in raw energy and movement and noise and questions.
Too soon all of this energy will go subterranean, sliding incrementally into long sullen silences as they hunker down to figure out who they are until, thankfully, they emerge after long gestation, big and brash and beautiful, identities all their own. Not yet though. For now, they want me with them (always) and they share every single thought (loudly) because every experience is fascinating, worthy of the deepest attention. For them, life is huge and enthralling, a stream in which they splash with delight.
Knowing their desire for my presence is a time-limited good, I silence my incessant internal chattering call “to get stuff done,” and cook them breakfast, play an interminably long game of Monopoly and then settle into the couch to watch a football game while they yammer and eat and stick a finger in their ear and wiggle, so that watching the game is anything but passive.
The easy goodness of the moment is broken by a disagreement, a screech and a thrown lego, and I send the littlest minion to his room. He makes his displeasure known along the way, wailing and weeping until that wee Job lies on his bed and thump, thumps the bedroom wall with the heel of his foot until he thump-kerchunks a hole in his wall, and in his distress and with fascination at the damage he has wrought, he snuffles his way back to the couch, abject and worried.
His furrowed brow is so deeply remorseful I cannot be mad, so we trot off to the bed, look at the hole in the wall, tut tut together, discuss at great length how to patch drywall and decide it’s time to visit Home Depot for a patch kit, which leads to slow walks down endless aisles, his hand in mine, while I answer questions about the importance of mesh in drywall mud. He is very interested in drywall patching. And because the whole effort is calorie consuming, we look for a place to eat that doesn’t serve garlic infused french fries because, of course, any variation from normal french fries will cause much head shaking and hand wringing and maybe a little more weeping.
I wrangle them into a shower, then pajamas and finally, finally to bed. Standing by their bed, I listen as their breathing slows and they settle into quiet and dear God I don’t want them to leave this moment — this carefree, unselfconscious, playful, trusting, hopeful way of being. I want to say, plead really, when I tuck them in that night: “Stay right here my two little founts of chaos. Don’t listen to all the noise that says life is nothing but – nothing but work, nothing but accumulation, nothing but atoms crashing randomly into one another. Don’t do a weary, cynical, ironic distance from life. Do joy, and hope. Always.”
But I don’t say that because it would be weird and incomprehensible. Instead, I pull the blanket up over their shoulders, run my fingers through their still damp hair, and pray for them now, my hand on their warm foreheads: “May our Lord bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you . . . "
As I leave the room, I think of my two older children, a young man and woman long past tucking in. My thoughts find them, hoping they revisit joy again and again as they grow into adulthood. Just yesterday they were energetic little ones too, all giggly and wild with promise. To my daughter who writes, I want to say, “write joy.” To my oldest son who sings, I want to say “sing joy.”
And at least on some days, days like this, I find joy too. With all the little minion-goodness filling my days and beautiful Idaho gal coming home to share life with me, her calm grace a healing balm, I can believe in a joy that “moves the sun and all the stars,” as Dante hoped. We are promised it’s there all the time: “I tell you the stones will cry out.”
I step outside, into the long, blue, Pacific Northwest summer night, a soft breeze plays in the trees behind the house. I build a small fire that pops yellow and loud against the coming darkness, and settle into the quiet evening with a golden pour of whiskey and a good book. The sun sets slowly behind the green hills, the breeze stops, night comes, the fire fades into red embers, and I wait in the dark, listening for the jingle of keys and the creak of an opening door.
