Twinkles of Joy

So…

• as we say goodbye to summer and approach the upcoming winter (which is never a good thing in my books),
• as I continue to get used to the early rising hour that fall routine requires (I am SO not a morning person),
• as I spent an hour today talking to 50 students (while I’m no longer a nervous wreck doing it, I don’t relish the loooong opportunity to potentially make a fool of myself with the next sentence I might say), and
• as I take a junior tribe member to a walk in clinic (where the wait is hours long, and we wait unknown news),

I decided I would look for the little moments of joy…

This is rather in keeping with Brene Brown’s recent blog entry that talked about joy like this:

I think the beauty of twinkle lights is the perfect metaphor for joy.

Joy is not a constant. It comes in us in moments—often ordinary moments. Sometime we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down the extraordinary moments. Other times we’re so afraid of the dark that we don’t dare let ourselves enjoy the light.

A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable.

I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude and inspiration.

I’ve kept up my gratitude journal…which has me be deliberate about capturing snapshots of joy in my day. It’s continued to help me shape my world…knowing I will have a chance to write in it, has me anticipating what I will say as I go about my day…I begin enjoying the entry hours before I write it.

Today’s twinkles of joy:

• The smell of the roasting hotdogs and cooked onions at the hotdog stand at the Health Sciences Center…walking past that stand on my way to the car from class just had it feel like full-on-summer for a minute. The smell of BarBQ is a powerful twinkle in my mind.mmmm mmmmmm
• Remembering how the lady with a full cart let me go ahead of her with 4 items. She didn’t have to do it…and she was so friendly and nonchalant about it. (May I remember to pay this forward).
• Seeing my favorite little toddler after what felt like “too long” since seeing her…and the delight I had when she gestured to my purse because she remembered… “our thing”, her and I, is to play with my iPhone’s camera…we look at ourselves in the camera, and point to noses and eyes, and generally gaze in wonder at what we see in the camera. This is her “posed smile” look which only looks painful…it’s really her scrunching up her little face into what she imagines is cute (and gosh darn it, it is)!
• 
• The chance to be bored together with my junior tribe member today while we were waiting. So often, life rushes by, and there’s little chance to hang out with little to do, and less to talk about…just hanging out, and finding some companionable peace in the quiet…sort of like sitting in a boat and fishing…except without the poles and sitting in a doctor’s office.

Did you have any moments of joy twinkling in your day?