Joy

You took my joy, I want it back.

--Lucinda Williams

I gotta get me some joy. I've been missing it. Perhaps I'm just not paying attention. Ok, I'll try harder. Allow me to exercise my brain in an effort to get me some joy. I know it's in there. I just need to acknowledge it. Joy...

joy –noun; the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.

The following things give me immense joy:

• A good idea, especially on the rare occasion that it’s mine.


• The look of a man’s feet in sandals.


• The sound of my babies laughing.


• The times when I get to spend whole days with my children. And then the times when I get to spend whole days by myself.


• When strangers refer to my children as “little people,” because they are.


• Butterflies, real ones in the summer time, and the ones that magically flutter around in my stomach when something good is about to happen.


• Driving Southbound on MoPac in central Austin when the train is running alongside, with the windows down, the radio up, and Elias and Lena screaming their heads off and giggling to beat the band, “A Train Mommy! A TRAIN! A TRAAAAIIIIINNNNNNN!”