“joy noun

1 whoops of joy | the look of joy on her face: delight, great pleasure, joyfulness, jubilation, triumph, exultation, rejoicing, happiness, gladness, glee, exhilaration, ebullience, exuberance, elation, euphoria, bliss, ecstasy, transports of delight, rapture, radiance; enjoyment, gratification, felicity; cloud nine, seventh heaven; French joie de vivre; humorous delectation; literary joyousness; rare jouissance, ravishment, jocundity.

ANTONYMS misery, despair

2 it was a joy to be with her: pleasure, source

delight, treat, thrill; informal buzz, kick.

ANTONYMS trial, tribulation3 informal if you still have no joy, you may have to resort to the courts: success, satisfaction, luck, successful result, positive result; accomplishment, achievement. “ (Online Dictionary)

In my book, Beginnings: A Book for Widows, McLelland and Stewartt, 1977), I made a distinction between joy and happiness. I don’t want to look it up now, though I know I still make the distinction. Happiness for me is a state of being which I am seldom in. It’s more like contentment (resignation?) now. Marie Kondo, the tidiness best-seller, has nailed it. She advises throwing away the things that don’t give you joy and organizing things so that they do. Since I organized my socks the way she prescribes, my sock drawer now gives me joy, not jump-up-and-dpwn joy, but satisfaction, pleasure—contentment—an“ informal buzz” . She says you should get rid of your books because, she thinks, books don’ t give you joy. Imagine!

I can’t.

I’m organizing my files and papers to send my last shipment to the University of Manitoba archives. It’s a huge, time-consuming task and I’m very slow but it gives me such pleasure, aka joy. I’m re-reading everything, vey much aware that I’m alive now but I won’t be if and when some scholar wants to check me out (after I have checked out. that is) so I must to be very picky for their sake.

I’m slow but I’m enjoying it.

Yes, it gives me joy—an informal buzz.

I hope you have some thing that gives you such pleasure.

It got ahead of me. Way ahead.

I started well. Up early, before 4, had my orange and checked mail and news, swam at 7, did a little shopping (looking), waited for groceries to be delivered. Late. Not late but later than they have ever been. Finally ate breakfast (scrambled eggs with mushrooms and a slice of sourdough bread, toasted). I sat down with the NYT magazine—thinking any minute now—and read the whole thing, well, two long articles I didn’t think I’d have time for. Just finished as they came.

So I put things away, made coffee, checked the bill, planned menus, especially dinner: all vegetables. And then I lost it, the day, control, everything. I sagged into Netflix, ignoring what I planned to work on. About 3 in the afternoon I had lunch, an ice cream bar, delivered this morning, and went for the mail—nada.

I assembled the vegetables I planned for dinner. I had to be finished early because I had signed up for a ZOOM lecture at 7 p.m.

Harvard considers me a graduate because I was a fellow at the Mary Bunting Institute at Radcliffe before their closer relationship now. So I’m on the mailing list.

This was the first time I signed on for a ZOOM event, a lecture by a therapist on the nervous system and how it affects the brain and the body. I had some vague idea that maybe I could relieve some of my chronic pain by approaching it from a different angle.

The presentation held me; it was well done. I took notes and appreciated the graphic summaries and images. Questions from the audience and answers by the lecturer had little to do with my problem, but they were useful in a way. I have some thinking to do, about my childhood. My new (projected) book will help.

My vegetables: leftover sweet potatoes, from last night, sugar snap beans, Brussel sprouts roasted in olive oil and maple syrup, and two hash brown potato pads from the freezer. Didn’t eat it all. Too much.

Not a great day, but I might make something of it.

Everything takes time.