Joy of the Day, Day 21: My Boat

A few things I’ve learned so far through the practice of living intentionally by finding and naming the joy in each day:

1. It has been less difficult than I thought it would be. 2. Even when the day isn’t great overall, there is joy to be found in it. 3. The flip side of #2: Sometimes I have the hardest time naming my joy on days that feel really good as a whole. 4. The fact that I get to engage in any of this reflects the underlying truth that my basic needs are being met—that the people I love, myself included, are safe, secure and healthy. That is, my baseline status quo is such that I have space, time and energy to focus on thinking and writing about things that are affirmatively joyful in my life.

I do not take #4 lightly. All of my joy-finding is set against a backdrop of the coronavirus, and I acknowledge that engaging in this exercise is a privilege. Or even a luxury. Or even an indulgence.

A few days ago, in the course of one of many, many (many, many) Facebook scrolling sessions, I stumbled upon a post—“author unknown”—that stopped me in my tracks. The crux of it is this: we may all be in the midst of the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat. This is such an excellent analogy for how we, as humans, collectively and individually experience life in the time of coronavirus. Yes, there is not a person in this country, or arguably the world, who is not impacted in some way by the virus. It is, undeniably, a universal struggle in this way. But no, not a single one of us can be experiencing life today in the same way as any other of us; every single one of us, for better or for worse, is navigating the swells of the coronavirus in an entirely different, one-of-a-kind boat.

Each morning, I watch Governor Cuomo give his daily press briefing, because I believe that he’s being thorough, thoughtful and honest with me about the storm we are facing. The other day he spent a few minutes at the end of the briefing speaking honestly about the fact that while he is dealing with an unenviable gamut of challenges presented by the pandemic, he is also relishing the unanticipated but invaluable gift of meaningful time and conversation with his children. But for the virus, he admitted, he would never have experienced the closeness to his children he now enjoys. It was a brave and tender thing for the Governor to say, I thought, because while it is good and right to refrain from “comparative suffering,” in the wise words of Brené Brown, surely a good many listeners would judge Cuomo for finding joy in spite of our current crisis—for discovering that his boat came equipped with a bright silver lining.

My own boat came together on the fly. It is built from materials that I already had lying around: my history, my people, my ideas, my emotions, my socio-economic circumstances, my experience. It is the metaphorical incarnation of my life to date, such as it is, and nothing more. Knowing this, I can say that mine’s a fairly sound and seaworthy craft, and that it’s pretty well-equipped. I don’t need to get into the business of apologizing for my boat or of comparing it to other boats now weathering the same storm. But I do need to be mindful that billions of other boats exist, and I do need to be grateful for the boat I have. And I am.

Today, my boat is my joy. #joyinplace