elizabethlevett

I was out on my walk through the park today and stopped at a little cafe for a snack. The lovely young woman behind the counter had her back turned and was sharing a laugh with someone in the kitchen when I walked up. She turned around and, when she saw me, she said, “Oh, sorry!” Don’t be. Please young people, don’t ever be sorry for being able to find joy.

It’s a mixed bag out there these days. There is so much happening each day that can easily break your heart. War, violence, cruelty, I don’t need to tell you, right? You know, misogyny, racism, intolerance, lack of empathy. There people are online telling guys how to use chloroform on a date or taking bets on the next wildfire, where innocent human beings are getting shot down, where beautiful young people go mysteriously missing when they should be having fun, where the selfish desires of billionaires seem to take priority over human need, we have to survive and maybe even summon up the audacity to thrive.

Some things seriously suck and I’m in no position to try talking anybody out of an occasional panic attack or bout with the blues. I’ll acknowledge that there are days when you feel like breathing into a paper bag. I get so preoccupied I’ve caught myself walking toward the pantry to put away the ice cream before realizing what I was doing. (Why am I putting it away at all, right?) However, in the spirit of young people everywhere, those ones spending eight hours on a beautiful Sunday serving coffees and snacks to a stream of customers, and often not seeing a smile or hearing a friendly greeting, it gives me great pleasure to pass on some good news. It’s just this, there are some pretty great things happening too, things to acknowledge. I’m not suggesting ignorance or complacency. I’m not saying we can tune out the world or ignore what’s happening. I’m just saying maybe we can sometimes take a moment’s time out to possibly recharge and turn one’s inner lights back on when the news of the day threatens to blow them out. Instead of losing sleep over all the distressing things we face, it’s possible to find a few miracles to sustain us. Id’ like to offer you a list of seven awesome things I noticed in just the past couple of weeks, bonuses among the buzzkills, if you will, roses among the thorns. Here they are.

I was walking toward the library on one side of the street the other day. On the other side was a young woman with a very tired baby in a stroller. The baby was absolutely beside herself, keening away as the woman hurried along. Just then, a neighbor showed up with her two small poodles. She stopped just across from the young woman pushing the stroller with the inconsolable child and called out, “Does somebody need to meet some puppies?” The tantrum came to a complete ceasefire. Mission accomplished.

Early girl tomatoes and peaches are in at the farmers markets. If there are any two things that taste unmistakably like summer, these would be my picks. My sweet, late friend Merijane used to serve early girl tomatoes by the platter, sliced and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a little sea salt to be eaten on crusty bread. And peaches! Oh baby. My mom used to make deep dish peach cobbler and I’ll never forget my dad wrestling peach ice cream out of that hand-cranked ice cream maker on the back porch on a summer afternoon. This, my friends is living.

The guy who owns the pipes and hippie accessories shop a few blocks from here just adopted an 11-week-old rescue kitten, a spunky and sweet calico queen named Pasha. She hops right over when I go in to visit with her. On my second visit she fell asleep mid-purr while I was petting her and telling her what a good girl she is. Last week I brought her a toy that my own cats had grown tired of. She grabbed it right away and tore all over the shop with it in her mouth, tumbling over herself playing.

We often have dark-eyed juncos raising their young fledglings near our backyard. This year there are also downy woodpeckers and scads of pygmy nuthatches. They come every morning to scoot up and down the bark of our big oak, apparently having a blast looking for tiny bugs. Drives the cats nuts.

Our neighbors’ precocious five-year-old granddaughter made little beaded bracelets for each of us after I’d given her a sack of art supplies I’m not using anymore. (Don’t tell him I told you, but David put his bracelet on right away and even fell asleep wearing it!)

I was walking along the beach early one morning with a dear friend just in time to watch hundreds of tiny sanderlings racing up and down along the waves to catch a little breakfast. They were so earnest and busy and cute that we couldn’t help laughing our heads off. Joy is the way we heal ourselves, the way we become stronger together.

“If you’re not playful, you’re not alive.” – David Hockney

Last week David and I were walking along the rocks in Pacifica and noticed a whole pod of whales cavorting — carrying on — just this side of the horizon. Huge spouts and lots of breaching, showing their tails and doing belly flops. Total abandon, absolute play from these massive creatures! We pointed it out to a family standing near us and they got as excited as we were. It was a triumph of joy and that’s not something to ignore. It’s important. In fact, it’s revolutionary. If we can keep from hiding in our homes with the curtains closed and staring at our screens where we’ll doubtless just learn more bad news, we may end up talking to each other. Maybe smiling and even laughing. Just think how powerful we’ll be. It’s truly a mixed bag these days, I’ll grant you that. It’s devastating. But there’s still so much light in us. I think we can find it in ourselves and in each other. Joy is revolutionary and so is hope. I’m sure you can come up with your own list of buoyant things, things that kept you floating and pulled you back outside over the past couple of crazy weeks. I’d love to hear all about it so please share!

“Joy is an act of resistance.” – Toi Derricotte