Friday Writings #18: Moments of Joy

~ even amid disaster ~ 

 

Hello, dear wordsmiths.

Currently – as you hardly need telling – there is much occasion for alarm, horror, grief, despair….  These are appropriate reactions to some things going on in the world lately, both globally and in our own localities.

As many of you are aware, my town, like many others on the east coast of Australia, has recently been through horrendous flooding. I was never in danger, and luckily had enough food and petrol (not that I was able to go anywhere for a while); but lives were lost and the devastation around me is still hard to contemplate.

Meanwhile my son and his family (who live in Melbourne, interstate from here) tested positive for COVID – their symptoms fortunately not too severe, but uncomfortable enough.

The war in Ukraine shocks and distresses us all, and the prospect of further escalation is very frightening.

How helpless we feel – justifiably – in the face of such enormous events. And yet, to succumb to the emotions they arouse is not helpful. Action is what helps. But can we even take action?

In the flooding here, governments were slower to send help than on previous occasions. (Well, this one was the worst on record!) But the local communities have been incredible – people in small boats rescuing those stuck on rooftops; neighbours helping each other clear the mud left in houses; cafés reopening to offer free cooked meals to everyone rendered homeless and/or impoverished; private citizens cooking for them too; other individuals offering free laundry service; and so on and so on.

82 and arthritic, I didn’t volunteer anything like that. I used prayer, healing energy, and a spot of protective magic. None of which is fully effective if I am despondent. So I thought it essential to raise my own spirits.

I did this by finding moments of joy – joy in what are usually considered small things: the new flower blooming on my vine, out there in the back yard; my little cat curled asleep under her pink blanket into which she loves to burrow; reading Devotion (Why I Write) by Patti Smith; feeling grateful for the community spirit in our town; feeling both grateful and amused that my son in Melbourne was not struggling for breath in hospital, but planning to wait out the Omicron variant with a good book and some whiskey….

 

Our regular contributor ‘Revived Writer’ said it beautifully a couple of weeks ago:

Gift Today

joy-bubbles
rising in heart-glass:
drink it up,
notice it,
mysterious loveliness
in ephemera


If you would like a prompt this week, I invite you to write about something, however small and momentary, which brings you joy.

If you don’t feel the need of a prompt, please enjoy sharing with us whatever you care to write (or have already written).  

One piece per person, please – old or new, poetry or prose (prose limit 369 words excluding title) – and then link, below, to the particular post on your blog. If you’d like to leave a link there to us here, we’d be delighted. As we would to receive any comments you’d care to make here.

Enjoy the writing and reading! As the prompt stays open all week, don’t forget to check in on any gems arriving towards the end of that time.

Next week, Magaly will invite us to create poetry or prose inspired by the phrase, “It’s important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle.”