Friday Feature: City Sidewalks, Pretty Sidewalks

 My February foray into a writing word a day left me fascinated with the notion of exploring creativity beyond the writing and music that I already enjoy. I've never been very artistic, but I've always enjoyed decorating and I love reading Ingrid Fetell Lee's Aesthetics of Joy blog that brings concepts like color, design and happiness together. 

So, last week, when I stumbled across this piece about painted crosswalks in Axios, I was immediately drawn in. It reminded me of some of the things Lee talked about in her book, Joyful, and of the role color plays in our lives and our moods.

As I write this, the rain is pouring down outside. It's a gray day with a chill in the air that led me to change immediately into sweats when I came into my warm, dry house after work and errands. On two separate occasions today, I complimented people on a bright pink article of clothing -- one a dress, the other a jacket -- both bright spots in the grayness of the day and the mental exhaustion of the final week of classes. I'd opted for a soft sweater that I love, but it was gray and seeing those beautiful pinks made me smile and left me wishing I'd brought my own pop of color into the classroom today.

Sometimes solutions are logical, practical and linear. Other times, they're pops of color, painted bricks and crosswalks that make us stop and pay attention, whether because of their hue, their beauty or their unexpected appearance in a logical, practical, linear, gray world. 

As a person whose sensibilities lean more toward the artistic than the logical, I have to say I prefer the latter. But imagine the power they bring when they're combined with practicality to create a solution that makes us smile.

Not everyone likes the pretty fuchsias that made me stop, smile, and compliment the wearer today. Some people prefer more subtle colors like the gray of my sweater, or the browns and greens that call to mind the serenity of nature. But, whatever our preference, the colors that surround us impact our mood, inspiring serenity, joy, or a host of other emotions. And paying attention to our choices or the colors that capture us can help us make our world a little calmer, brighter, or maybe even safer.

Suddenly, that box of 64 Crayola crayons holds so much more promise than I ever imagined.

Friday Feature: Choosing Joy

On Tuesday, I declared that I was choosing joy. At the peak of uncertainty in our political process, I'd had enough of the anxiety, the disbelief and the anger, all of which were being whipped into a frenzy by not just social media but actual news reports of just how well we all were not getting along.

The thing is, joy is something we can always choose. We can't make the bad stuff go away, we can't deny that the world isn't always a rosy place, but we can choose our own outlook. We can carve out a few minutes of joy even in the midst of sadness and sorrow. 

As I type this, I have no idea what the election results will be, nor do I know if we'll have this information by the time this post goes live, but I am determined not to let them steal my joy. They will influence it, of course, as whoever is running the country has an enormous impact on very important things in my life, but in my little corner of the world, I can always choose joy, even if only for a few moments. 

And, lest I forget, I can turn to the experts to see just how easy it can be to change my outlook from gloom and doom to not so bad, or, if I'm determined, life is good. On her Aesthestics of Joy blog, Ingrid Fetell Lee shares "8 Quick Things You Can do Right Now to Boost Your Mood."

It's been a tough week. Why not give it a shot? The only thing you have to lose is a little gloom and doom, and that sounds like a pretty good trade-off to me.

Friday Feature: Recapturing Joy with Just One Word

Every once in a while, I read something that sticks with me so much that I find myself citing it and recommending it to others. This week's article is one of those pieces.

I started reading the book Joyful long before the semester began. When my teaching/writing responsibilities edged reading out of my schedule, I continued to chip away it nevertheless, alternating between reading the book and listening to it on Audible. A mix of research and stories, Joyful is a fun read because of its topic, and, as an added bonus, author Ingrid Fetell Lee has exactly the voice one would expect from someone who writes about joy.

So, earlier this week, when an email landed in my inbox with the subject line "One word that leads to a more joyful life," I was intrigued. And, upon learning the word, I was surprised.

The word is no.

In a warm, wonderful piece laced with personal connections, Lee lays out the case for putting ourselves and our priorities first. While the oft-repeated theme that every yes to one thing is a no to something else runs through the article, there is also a connection to our personal joy that makes the piece one I want to sit down and savor, rather than rushing through it as I had to the first time I read it.

Regular readers may remember my declaration of the Year of No way back in December 2017, something that came immediately to my mind when I read Lee's piece. While most of my no's were small ones, reclaiming an hour here or fifteen minutes there, they gave me practice for a new behavior, one that replaced the automatic "yes" that shoved me out of my own schedule as I shoe-horned everyone else in. As with any other habit, this one required practice to become ingrained, especially when I knew the no that was so necessary to me constituted a disappointment to someone else.

Lee's article was another reminder of the importance of this seemingly small act, reinvigorating my determination to protect my time, whether by creating a schedule and sticking to it or by saying no to the things there simply aren't room for, or that I just don't want to do in the first place.

While it's sometimes unavoidable to say yes when we want to say no, if we learn to factor our needs into the equation, we'll minimize the number of times we find ourselves in this position. And who knows? We might even find time for the things we want to do that don't seem to make it into the schedule.

Like, say, reading an entire book.

Creating Joy

The Aesthetics of Joy

One of the best things about the break between semesters is that I get to read. Sometimes, I read the novel I've been dying to read. Other times, I pick up a book I started, determined to get to the end -- finally!

Or perhaps I simply pick up the closest book.

In this case, that's exactly what I did. Of course, the closest book also happened to be closest because when it came in the mail the other day, I put it on top of my reading pile. Joyful, by designer Ingrid Fetell Lee looked like the perfect pre-Christmas read.

In Joyful, Lee examines how to create joy in our surroundings, effectively using external joy to spark its internal counterpart.
Lest you think this is a frivolous read about decorating your house, or, worse yet, an ode to materialism, let me tell you that it's not. Its subtitle: "The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness," got me thinking before I even opened the cover (which is another story -- see below), leading me to create my own joy list: small things that bring me joy.

I decided that this was too big a job for a single sheet of paper, and I wanted it to be an ongoing project. Luckily, as a notebook aficionado (occupational hazard), I typically have several blank notebooks sitting around waiting for me to assign them a purpose. I started my list before I started the book and after finishing Chapter 1, I was even more impressed by the inadvertent astuteness of my choice.

I'm only two chapters in, but this is the kind of non-fiction book that calls out to me the same way a novel does. I have cookies to bake and gifts to wrap and I need to convince myself to do these things instead of curling up with the book whose cover, under its dust jacket, looks like a colorful festival of confetti.

Which brings me to my joy list. Here are a few of my choices so far:

• Just-right notebooks.
• Pens that write just right.

  

  Not an exact match for
  my notebook,
  but pretty close.
  (target.com)

• A beautiful piece of prose. 
• Seashells, flip flops and any reminder of the beach (including sand in the bottom of a tote bag).
• My daughter's laughter.
• Judgment-free zones.
• Writing.
• A sense of unhurriedness.

The purpose of my list is to focus on ordinary, small things. Of course I'm grateful for my family, my faith, friends who love me in spite of my flaws, my home, the reason for the season....

But what are the little things that have a big payoff? The things that can make me smile in the midst of a day that's gray or frustrating or exhausting or overwhelming?

  

In this beautiful, hectic, list-checking time of year, what brings you joy?