Don’t Postpone Joy

Don’t postpone joy.

Don’t tuck it in a pocket and forget which one.

Don’t tell it just one more thing, then…

Don’t give joy lower status than all the other children of need.

Lean in to listen to what it might not say with words, to its call as steady as night becoming morning, as silent as unobstructed breath.

Let joy caress and whisper, coo and seduce.

Let it wander into meetings, look over your shoulder when you do the dishes, not act grownup.  Let joy flavor your breakfast in unexpected ways and always come in without knocking.

Let it pull you out onto the dance floor of your mind.

Allow joy to remind you

To wake you

Lull you

Take you

Tease you and seize you.

Let joy remind you of who you are and who you were, even when joy was locked out of your life by the joyless ones

Let joy help you forgive the joyless ones.

Let your joy be a seasoning of their bland, sour or bitter lives without them even noticing joy sneaked in the tiny glass salt shaker they absentmindedly reach for and shake.

Note: I wrote this in response to a writing spark (a collection of pins with slogans or phrases on them) offered at the tail end of a Tuesday night Dance of the Letters group.  We had 5 minutes to write.  This is what flowed out of me.  

I might have tucked this away like so many other “bits” of writing.  Reading it in the group and realizing that it impacted others led me to save it.   I share the fact that I almost filed it into obscurity, just in case you might be doing that with some of your writing.  You just never know.

Honor your words.  Take a chance on sharing them, if you haven’t, perhaps choosing carefully at first with whom.  No one can write just like you. That’s not a good thing; it’s a great thing!

Now, let me know in the comments below: what have you postponed that you want to remind yourself not to postpone?