joy: week 7

all aboard the yacht that rocks

The best thing about doing these every week is the way this exercise has turned me around mentally. I find myself really examining everything I’m doing or seeing or hearing. I take a moment to stop and recognize when I am feeling joy instead of numbly letting the moment go by. I savor that joy now, I think about it all week while I’m preparing to write this Sunday column. It’s helping me live a little more in the moment. And while the joys I find may not be profound or loom large, they each play a part in making me feel whole. Here’s to finding all the little things that make you happy

Yacht Rock radio is back!

I literally squealed with delight when I found out Sirius was bringing back Yacht Rock Radio. This has been my favorite brand of music lately. Songs from my childhood and teen years, songs I had long forgotten about yet somehow still remember all the lyrics. I have a Spotify playlist called “Easy Like a Sunday Morning” (see below) which is 80% yacht rock, with some 90s and 2000s songs thrown in for good measure. It’s all easy listening, and it soothes me, comforts me, pleases me like nothing else, especially on a Sunday morning. I especially like to listen to yacht rock in the car, as it keeps me on an even level in traffic (as opposed to, say, Pantera, which just adds fuel to the road rage fire).

Jiffy Pop Popcorn

You can read a lot into the fact that most things that bring me my small joys are related to my childhood. Since I’ve been home and recovering from surgery, I find myself reaching for all the comforts I had when I was sick as a child. This week I made the soup my mom used to make me when I was sick, I made pastina with butter for dinner, and I made Jiffy Pop popcorn for a snack yesterday. The absolute delight I felt when the foil started rising and the corn started popping! Childhood memories unlocked, joy commenced.

Outdoor Season

I’m not really one for the great outdoors. I’m a homebody. I like to be on my couch, doing my thing. Leave me alone, let me be, etc. But I’ve been stuck in the house for the most part since March and I have been itching to look at something besides these walls and the tv. And thus I moved from my indoor couch to my outdoor loveseat. I really have a beautiful set-up outside. I have this breezeway, which leads to what I like to call the veranda, where I have couches and chairs and a fire pit. I don’t use these areas enough because I’m always satisfied with staying indoors like a vampire. Well, no more. I had my coffee outside at 7am, just me and the birds and the occasional squirrel. I did some deep breathing, taking in the morning aura, soaking it up into my soul. And there I found a joy that I could repeat every day. Being outside has done wonders for my state of mind.

I hope you found some joy this week, and I hope if you did that you savored it. Now go sit outside and listen to some yacht rock. Maybe make yourself some popcorn.