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Joy amidst pain. Joy amidst untimely deaths. Joy amidst soul crushing anxiety. Joy amidst fear, hope, friends dealing with trauma, 24-hour news cycles, angry mobs, self doubt.
Is it possible to experience joy while also experiencing all of these things?
This month has presented me with all of them. I’ve felt emotionally sunk at times – sometimes for days, weeks, hours. And then I’ve been buoyed by a passing car with a bumper sticker that simply reads “LOVE.” It’s in those moments that I find joy. That I’m reminded that joy still exists. That it is always around, especially when we look for it.
This point was made more clear and concise when, a few days ago, I came upon Ingrid Fetell Lee’s TED Talk “Where Joy Hides And How to Find It.” Her talk was posted in April 2018 and already has 1.9 million views. It is profound – I highly recommend taking 13 minutes to watch it. Among her highlights is one quote that made me pause the video and sit and think. In that moment, I was overcome by a wave of joy.
“The drive towards joy is the drive towards life.”
This quote encapsulates what I want to do with this newsletter, and whatever comes next. I am driving towards life. Towards living life fully and completely, with all of is bumps and roadblocks and metaphorical (and, ugh, literal) diarrhea that is involved with being a human. Writing this newsletter is reminding me, on almost a daily basis, to look for the joy in moments. It isn’t always easy. There is so much out there in the world that is hard, unfair, tragic and straight up horrifying. But there is also so much joy. Every day. Around every corner. Even on the busiest days. Even on the eighth day of sleeping only two hours per night.
That last point – about sleeping – was my reality in late November/early December while Tyler and I spent 10 days in Europe. We arrived in Paris on a rainy Saturday morning, took a cab to our Airbnb and got out of the car directly in front of 35 riot gear police officers chillin' on the side of the road. Our apartment was located in St. Germain, a fancy neighborhood in Paris, so the sight was a little odd.
I was completely freaked out, while Tyler shrugged it off and we schlepped our bags inside. “You won’t want to go on the Metro today because its shut down, and don’t go down to the Champs-Elysees because there are violent protests going on," our Airbnb host told us. Hmm.
Sure enough, we’d arrived on the second weekend of what would become a series of major protests (still going on, as of this writing) over fuel prices and the overthrow of a 40-year-old president with no government experience who caters to the rich (I mean, how could they elect someone like that?? Wait…now I want to throw up).
We spent the first day at the Louvre, but then my body decided that sleep wasn't a good idea at all and I ended up lying awake between 10 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. for the next seven mornings. We did everything to help the situation (Tyler's jet lag was marginally less extreme than mine), including purchasing Melatonin, walking around the Luxembourg Gardens in our bare feet to somehow connect us with the electromagnetic field of the earth and right the fluid in our cells (yes, I did a lot of Googling). The pic at top is of us doing just that.
Nothing worked.
We went to Lucerne, Switzerland half way through the trip and around 4:30 a.m. one morning I LOST MY SHIT. 100% serious: I contemplated throwing my fist through the hotel room wall. Sleeplessness doesn’t look good on me; just ask anyone whose ever lived with me. I turn into a 600 lb. gorilla that hasn’t eaten in a week.
After sleeping for maybe two hours – 6:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. – I somehow got through the day and then felt increasing anxiety as the sun started to go down (i.e. my breakfast time). How am I going to sleep? How am I going to keep my cool when the clock strikes 3 a.m. and I feel like I want to climb Everest again?
It was as if I was chatting with the universe, because a thought came straight to me with the answer: your body wants to be alone. Hmm. It was true. In my normal, non-travel life, I spend a fair bit of time by myself, working, driving, whatever. But while traveling with Tyler, I’m with him every waking moment. Maybe this jet lag was my body’s way of carving out some me-time. I laid down that night feeling much more relaxed. Along with the me-time thought was the realization that anger is kryptonite to sleep.
Guess what? I fell asleep at 3:45 a.m.! WHAT A WIN!
The next morning (5 hours after falling asleep), I felt like I was floating in a bubble of joy. It was one of the best days of the trip. That small shift in my mindset changed everything, and made me think that joy could be found even in my most sleep-deprived state.
Very important disclaimer: I am *still* in the “delicate flower” phase of this newsletter, so I would like to request zero feedback - Z.E.R.O. - other than overtly positive comments (i.e. “love it, Katie!” “this is awesome!”). I may want constructive feedback on this project at some point, but today is not that point. Thanks for understanding and respecting the delicate flower inside me.
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F**king Brenda
The day we arrived home from Europe was the same day I realized we had a houseguest. Her name is Brenda and she is a skunk. I guess you can’t call her a houseguest, per se, because she isn’t IN OUR HOUSE (yet) but she has a freakish obsession with our home. Or, more specifically, our garage door.
I don’t know much about skunks, but I’m guessing they spray when they don’t like something. Well, our garage door must have done something really bad to Brenda, because she fucking hates it. I thought she was *inside* the garage, until I looked around carrying a broom (what help would a broom do if we came face to face? I have no idea), and couldn’t find her. But whoa could I smell her.
We live on a hill, so our garage is the only part of our home that is flush with the ground. The rest is on stilts. I tell you this because, after a few days of being home, Brenda had clearly gotten pretty comfy. My guess is that she’s created a nice homey den under our garage and isn’t planning to move anytime soon. Maybe she's inviting over her skunk friends. The problem with this, other than having a skunk (or multiple) around at all times, is that the area under our garage is right next to our shower window. We live in a home built in the 60s, so we don’t have a bathroom fan, and are forced to open the window to air out the bathroom every time we take a shower.
So, to this day (now 10 days after our trip), every time I step out of the shower, the smell of Kiehl’s grapefruit body wash is strongly overpowered by Brenda’s natural perfume.
Tyler and I discuss Brenda on the regular. "What the fuck, Bren?" is the common start and end to any conversation where we are going into our leaving our garage.
I have yet to find joy in this situation. Should I go under the garage and scare her away and maybe get sprayed - or worse, surrounded by all her skunk friends? Or should I leave her alone and have compassion for Brenda? Maybe, for the first time in her life, she feels safe from the mountain lions and coyotes in our neighborhood.
I welcome any and all ideas for how to deal with my Brenda problem.
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Things that are bringing me joy right now
- Having a “joy buddy.” Upon learning of my fascination with joy, my friend Faith came up with the idea to be joy buddies. In theory, we meet monthly for lunch to talk about things that are bringing us joy. In reality, we struggle to find the time to meet so instead we text each other maybe every 10 days with four words, “How’s the joy going?” Our responses are real and don’t often include joyful things. But it is a really nice way to check in and be honest with another person who is intentionally working towards noticing more joy in the world. I recommend this practice.
- Learning that the little piece of paper that sticks out of the top of a Hershey’s Kiss is called…wait for it...a nigglywiggly. This solid piece of trivia is thanks to my friend Kate. Learning this helped make my day far more joyful.
- Picking up the 2019 catalog for Spirit Rock, a Buddhist Zen center about 40 minutes north of San Francisco, and learning that there is a weeklong retreat scheduled for June called “Awakening Joy.” I mean?!?!
- My new Ruth Bader Ginsburg Christmas tree ornament, courtesy of my friend Christina. I opened this deeply thoughtful surprise gift while wearing my “Notorious RBG” t-shirt. Complete coincidence. The universe knows what’s up. Ruth is prominently hanging in the center of our tree, the same spot she will stay for all Christmases moving forward from now into infinity.
- My “I Cry Everyday” patch. I found this patch in January at a feminist bookstore while shopping in Portland with my Mom and Kristy and COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING. I’m not sure if anyone else finds it funny, but I don’t care. I think it is brilliant and vulnerable and I love everything about it. I kinda want to make some of my own to give out as presents. I’ve promised myself that I will sew it onto my backpack (the same one I take on biz trips) by the end of today.
- People who make hearts in places – beaches, in cement
- The fact that Kaleidoscope Juice exists. For those of you not familiar, KJ (my abbrev, no one calls it that) is a fabulous juice/smoothie/coffee shop in Scottsdale, AZ. I go down there every six-ish weeks for work and have gotten to obsession-status where I will only stay at hotels that are within walking distance. After visiting on Wednesday, I walked in to to find the saying (top of this section) on the ground.
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Smoothie Saga 2.0
For those of you who were riveted by the account of my new identity as someone who eats smoothies every day (no, I haven’t seen my neighbor since the blueberry incident), I have an update.
I’ve become a smoothie master. Not a day goes by when I don’t make a smoothie. I’m a big fan of combining frozen blueberries, peaches, bananas, almond milk, almond butter, vanilla protein powder (makes it taste like cake batter), spinach (no flavor), flax seeds and chia seeds. It tastes great and always turns out purple.
I’ve gotten a little cocky about my smoothies, so last week I didn’t think twice about drinking one while also reorganizing my desk. In a moment of moving a box from the desk to the bed, I aggressively sideswiped my full smoothie cup and it went everywhere.
Like, everywhere (as evidenced above).
New learning: smoothies splatter. A lot. And when you have rental-stucco-been-painted-over-10-times-with-cheap-paint walls, that shit doesn’t come off.
Tyler came home, walked downstairs to where I was working and instead of saying hello, I greeted him with, “I spilled my entire blueberry smoothie all over and it will stain the wall forever and this will come out of our security deposit and there isn’t anything we can do about it.”
He proceeded to say nothing, give me a half-hug, half-smile, nod and then went into our bedroom to take a lot of deep breaths.
The smoothie saga continues…
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Newsletters I LOVE
Nikki Weaver, one of my favorite humans (mentioned in my first newsletter), is an incredible actor, yoga instructor and much more. She sends out a regular newsletter that I save to read when I have time to let it sink in. Give it a try, you won't regret it (sign up here). And if you're in the mood to do yoga with me in Feb 2019 in San Diego, sign up for her retreat. I'm so excited.
Martha Beck is a hugely popular author and life coach who sends out weekly inspiring quotes. They are her own words and they always knock my socks off. Sign up for her newsletter here.
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What I'm watching right now
Looking to watch something light and funny with great writing? Me, too. As someone who is adverse to violence on TV, I thought my options were limited until I stumbled upon Landline, a comedy set in 90s NYC. It's streaming on Amazon Prime and has an awesome cast including some of my favs: Jak Duplass, Edie Falco and Jenny Slate.
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What I'm reading right now
Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet, is the only book I've ever read a second time. If you haven't read it, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's the first in a trilogy. The second one came out a few years back, and I couldn't get into it, but the third book is GREAT. Its called A Column of Fire and I'm about 480 pages in (thank you jet lag). Awesome escapist read.
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What I'm listening to right now
The Great Debates is arguably my all time favorite podcast. It's three friends, all of them TV writers, who get together weekly to debate on completely ridiculous topics. Every once in a while, an episode isn't that great, but most of the time listening gives me so much joy that I'm happy for hours afterwards.
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