Joy of the Day, Day 63: The Before

For as long as I can remember, we’ve had a large chalkboard, the one pictured below, hanging next to the desk in the kitchen, which is my command central. Because of the chalkboard’s location along one of our home’s major thoroughfares, I walk by it numerous times each day, every day.

Over the many years it has hung there, the chalkboard has phased through a variety of uses—a place to draw colorful chalk pictures, a place to spell out newly learned words with magnetic alphabet letters, and a place to display pieces of schoolwork of which we were especially proud. At some point in the last couple years, when no one was watching, when the kids lost interest in spelling as a hobby and stopped bringing home art for us to display, the chalkboard became a place for me to write an encouraging message or mantra, just in case anyone happened to notice as they went rushing by.

I’m not sure when our friend Kenner added his mark to my current “Shine Bright” directive, though I do know it feels like a long time ago. Maybe last year, maybe at New Year’s, maybe more recently than that. But I don’t have any intention of erasing it, because it definitely dates back to Before.

Before coronavirus, before La Quinta, before the quarantine, before the schools closed, before the basketball tournament was cancelled and the lacrosse season cut short. Before our last haircuts, before our first zoom calls and before we wore masks. Before we knew who George Floyd was and before we had curfews. The Before.

When I think about beginnings and endings, befores and afters, I picture differently sized, shaped and colored beads on a necklace, each with a hole in its middle and a strong thread strung through. Each bead is a moment, an event or a phase, with each bead bound to the others by sturdy, tightly-woven connections to the people I love.

Right now I am, we all are, in the middle, The During, of so many hard, ugly beads; each day I set my sights in search of hope and horizon, The After, which is surely to come. I’m so grateful for the constant, the thread that runs through it—my dear friends and family who, like Kenner the Awesome, help keep all my beads tethered since way back to Before.

Today, Kenner’s note on my chalkboard from The Before is my joy. #joyinplace

PS: This is my last Joy of the Day post—tomorrow I’m embarking on a brand new journey. When I began writing about daily joy back in April, I committed to continuing as long as it felt relevant and productive, and while my joyfinding practice has become a fixture in how I live each day, I’ve decided to refocus my writing life on something new. I invite all who are interested to walk alongside.