Joy is not a reward

On one of my dad’s last visits before his illness and death, he planted a jasmine in my backyard. My dad was a landscape designer, which was a reason for friction because I don’t exactly have a green thumb. He used to answer with patience after my various complaints: “This plant needs more water, Mariana. This one needs more sun. This one is getting way too much light.” As if he could call the plant customer service telepathically and hear something I could not understand for the life of me. He planted thejasmine in a corner, I didn’t think much about it. I probably thought it wouldn’t last either. I was wrong. It did, in fact, it grew a lot and really took over. Every year the jasmine blooms for exactly 2 weeks. It comes without much warning and boom: it’s all there. Exhaling the scent I remember most of my childhood. It’s a brief period that I wait for patiently every year. I remember the day he planted it and the laughter we’d share every time he’d get his hands dirty. The memory of him alive, full of health and vitality arrives without asking. Thejasmine becomes a vessel, it transports me to a moment of life, to his hands, to the beauty hidden amidst all the rest. I feel an immense amount of grief mixed with an even more immense amount of joy. I’ve been thinking about how we have a strange relationship with joy. As if it only fits when life is good or complete. As if we give ourselves thepermission to smile only before pleasure or happiness. Or, we’re only allowed to celebrate when we arrive, achieve, and conquer. When everything is checked off our list.

Standing in front of this fully bloomed jasmine, I realize that choosing to celebrate and savor joy is also a way to be in the world, especially in a world that takes away from us the capacity to do so. To be able to feel joy is a way to stand still. To be grateful is a way to realize we are still here, alive. I’m still here, alive. When we find in the small, most ordinary things a slice of joy, we affirm our existence, our humanity. I reflect on what gets in our way to experience joy. I wonder if it’s doing too much at once or holding too tight to control or to a negative emotion that is trying to protect us from the vulnerability that joy offers. Or it could be the good old guilt, the idea that we don’t deserve to feel joyful amidst chaos or confusion. Looking closer I see how we condition joy. Joy is not a reward. It’s our right, part of the multiplicity of our humanity. It’s our capacity to be touched by life, by its beauty, by laughter, by a warm feeling in our hearts. It’s also something we cultivate, reinforce and make room for. So, how are you making room to experience joy? How was joy taught or shown to you when you were little? What’s in theway of feeling or connecting with it? What comes to thesurface when you give yourself the permission to feel joy?
The jasmine flowers are slowly falling on the ground. This year they bloomed earlier. Everyday there are fewer and fewer. They remind me of the changes happening around and within me, the different forms things can exist. I realize that I might not have learned the language of theplants but through them I can talk to my dad and I can tell him: There's something beautiful happening right now because of you. Thank you for this corner of joy.


With love,
Mari