Joy

The other day a person asked me, "What gives you joy?" I was stumped for an answer. And that worried me. Was my life not joyful? What was the definition of joy - so happy you're giddy?

But I love the way my life works right now. So then I thought, if I put it on a scale of 1 to 10, and 10 is bliss, I might average a 6 on any day of the week. An 8 if it's a breezy summer day and I'm working in the garden. A 9 when I check my sales figures and a few books have sold.

Maybe you have to be down in the 2s and 3s to appreciate the rise to an 8. Maybe I'm just coasting a little too high and I'm already at joyful, so I can't see what greater heights I could reach?

An hour long massage is a 10.

Dinner with friends and family can be a 10.

Laughing so hard I can't catch my breath is always a 10.

Making dinner entirely out of the garden, a blue-sky day so clear it makes your eyes tear, the scent of daffodils in spring, homemade peanut butter ice cream with dark chocolate chips, hearing robins call to one another in the cooling twilight of a summer's day, the smell of autumn leaves, sleeping late on a cold, rainy morning, spiced cider in the winter, jam made from plums off the tree I planted...

Perhaps I take joy for granted.