Sunday, December 17: The Candle of Joy

My sister moved back to Ohio, where we are from, in the last few years after many years in California. This month she's been sending me boxes of my mother's belongings--old Mother's Day cards I made her with hilarious, original poems; jewelry boxes; giant vases that are admittedly kind of ugly but remind me of her.

Yesterday I opened the best box of all: a box full of my old dollhouse furniture. I was obsessed with a little plastic dollhouse I had throughout my elementary years. I played with it far longer than most children play with dollhouses. I made up story after story about a family I called "The Pedakia," which means the little children. But after awhile Pedakia became their last name, and they had all kinds of emotionally charged conversations and adventures--all within the confines of their own home.

When I became old enough to babysit and clean people's houses, I saved all my money to buy dollhouse furniture. By then I wasn't playing with the dollhouse, but I loved to open tiny drawers and cupboards, to stock them with bottles of Clorox and Molasses (no idea why Molasses, but that's one of the bottles that survives), decorate the house with tiny house plants and practical items like decorative towels and rugs.

I thought that furniture and that little family was long gone. Most of my toys are. But yesterday, I unwrapped each box, slowly, and I couldn't believe my eyes. The appliances and furniture were exactly like those that had been in my childhood home--the double oven built into the wall, the bathroom with two sinks, the long stove with the giant, ugly hood. All of the appliances are, of course, bright yellow--that terrible yellow from the 70s--just like the appliances in my childhood home.

I didn't remember any of these details. I started to cry not only because these things I'd spent all my babysitting and house cleaning money saving still existed, but because they were practically replicas of the house I had lived in that had held so much joy and suffering.

Why, at age 12-17, would I have bought plastic, bright yellow dollhouse appliances that look like the ones in my own home? Why would I not have given these away years ago, when all my other toys are long gone?

Because one of the ways I find joy is by telling stories, made up and real, that help me make sense of my life and the world. Because I delight in small, delicate things, in drawers and cupboards that actually open, in tree decorations that I unwrap year after year, in objects that hold memories. Because these are gifts I can share with others--my writing, my attention to the small and delicate, and, when translated out, my love for the vulnerable and least loveable, my ability to notice and love what they have to offer.

I write this not to brag but because, at age 46, I am finally able to recognize and celebrate my gifts. I'm also able to notice when I am pulling away from using them, when I feel ashamed of them, when I am being someone I am not. 

It would be easy to view these objects with sadness or sentimentality rather than joy, but the older I get, the more often I choose joy. Not a giddiness or short-term high, but a deep, satisfied happiness, one that underscores all of the grief and pain from my childhood (and adulthood), as well as the large and small irritations and challenges of my current life.

I have loved deeply and been loved deeply. I have lost people and homes, many, actually, but I have always managed to grieve honestly, to build up from the ashes. 

Today, as we light the bright pink candle of joy, let us realize that we may find our joy if we pay attention to what we loved most as children and can see those loves with new clarity. Let us not fall into the temptation to fill this time with consumerism or short highs--of course, gift giving and holiday parties are wonderful, but the deeper joy is about knowing who we are, what gifts we bring to the world, and delighting in them.