En-joying

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. — Thich Nhat Hanh

---

I saw a monarch butterfly fluttering around in my front yard a few mornings ago. Oh, joy! Big smiles!

News is grim in the monarch butterflies’ little corner of the universe. Because of habitat destruction, pesticides and herbicides, and extreme weather wrought by climate change, their numbers are dwindling precipitously. (Millions of monarch butterflies have gone missing, and there is one thing humans can do to help (bbc.com)) So whenever I see a monarch in my yard, I am thrilled.

Monarch butterfly resting among the wild strawberry and clover plants on my lawn.

The monarch butterfly’s appearance was a major inspiration for my choosing joy as the topic for today’s blog. I was just beginning to ponder the topic of “joy” when something else happened in my world — something that also involved wing-ed beings, and not the kind that generally inspire joy for me. This week the Great State of Maine Air Show returned to my hometown. Planes landed at the airfield all week long. Then, on Thursday, Air Force Thunderbird fighter jets started roaring over my house. Literally just above the treetops. Unfortunately, I live near the runway, right on the flight path for some of the Thunderbirds’ maneuvers. Whether practicing or performing, whenever the Thunderbirds ran through their routine, I was in the audience, whether or not I wanted to be. And, yes, they did practice. And, yes, they did perform. And, yes, my teeth were set on edge.

Sigh.

Did I mention the fighter jets are unbelievably loud (even for me, a person who now wears hearing aids) and scary (from my perspective)? Did I tell you that one year, when the jets flew overhead, our neighbors had a framed piece of art fall off their wall, glass shattering everywhere? And let’s not even get into the amount of fossil fuels those planes consume.

As I walked up my driveway at one point on Friday, the Thunderbirds screamed overhead in tight formation, barely clearing the tops of the trees in my back yard. The noise was deafening; the vibrations were ear-drum-shattering and bone-rattling. Even though I should be used to this biennial air show by now, my reptilian brain swung into high gear. I couldn’t help it. All I could think was, “I am going to die.” There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide, nowhere to feel safe.

Imagine how fighter jet shenanigans must have felt to my poor little cat (who pretty much clung to my side when the Thunderbirds were flying) — not to mention all the other animals and birds who may not have had somebody’s side to cling to. Imagine how the appearance of those kinds of planes must feel to the people below in an actual war zone.

Little Stevie the Cat takes a dim view of the Thunderbird fighter jets. Here he is, sitting right beside me as I type.

Now, I know plenty of people who love the air show, and they look forward to its appearance here every two years. They pay big bucks to attend — some apparently even arriving in RVs so that they can spend the weekend enjoying life parked somewhere near the runway (https://greatstateofmaineairshow.us/tickets/). I don’t judge or fault them — there is much to marvel at when you see those planes exercising feats that, by all rights, should be impossible. Not only are the planes performing incredible moves, but they are also doing so in choreographed formation.

But how am I to juxtapose others’ joy about the air show with my own feelings of anger and resentment? Those who love the air show get to choose to attend. But my home happens to be smack in the middle of the performance arena — right where the pilots retreat to set up some of their amazing stunts. Nobody ever asks me. I have no choice.

So, here I have been — a very grumpy person trying to write about joy this week. How ironic is that?

Maybe it has been a good exercise for me, though. After all, the whole point of this blog is to provide some moments to rise above the sturm und drang — the emotional turbulence and worry — of the world. This week, I have had plenty of opportunities to try to practice rising about the sturm und drang.

Here’s my basic message today: We need to cultivate and nourish joy so that we stay strong and hopeful. Nobody says this better than Heather Cox Richardson, who, in her weekly Facebook Live broadcast this week noted that, “authoritarianism cannot survive amongst a happy people.” Think about that for a moment. Authoritarianism can thrive only when a people are beaten down, fearful, divided, suspicious, and angry. Joy is not welcome at that table. So, joy needs to set an entirely different table, offer an entirely different menu, and invite others to join the feast.

The verb, “to enjoy,” is active, not passive. To enjoy something means to find and take delight in it. We don’t simply let something fall in our laps. We need to notice when it lands there and to delight in it when it does. Maybe, sometimes, we even need to work to find the moments or the events that will bring us joy. Maybe, sometimes, we need to create those moments or events. Enjoying is an active endeavor.

Butterflies are a pretty obvious source of delight. And the gorgeous monarchs, so precariously perched on the edge of disaster, represent a special kind of joy — the joy of seeing life pushing back against whatever threatens it. Enjoying a monarch sighting is an easy harvest for me.

To a degree, I even work to create monarch butterfly sightings. By design, my front yard sports very little lawn. (We have taken to heart the message that lawns are terrible for the environment.) Instead, our front yard features a series of raised beds where my spouse and I host Front Yard Gardens, a community garden for neighbors whose yards are too shady to grow much of anything.

Front yard gardens.

Several years ago, milkweed — the plant that provides 100% of the monarch butterfly’s diet — magically appeared in Front Yard Gardens. I don’t know where those feathery seeds blew in from, but they rooted themselves and grew. Without explicitly discussing it, we gardeners adopted a plan of letting some milkweed plants grow and pulling some up so that other plants can grow. We love our monarchs, and we want to provide them with a place to feed and build their lantern-like chrysalises. We also love our tomatoes, garlic, and zinnias. So, we compromise: some milkweed for the monarchs, some space for other crops.

My family has also taken other measures to help ensure our yard is a safe place for monarch butterflies and other creatures. We don’t use pesticides or herbicides, which do not discriminate as to their death-dealing blows. We try to be as conservative as possible about using fossil fuels. To the best of our ability, we try cause as little harm as possible while maybe even creating some good along the way. In that way, we try to protect the monarchs’ world, and we open the door to joy.

Sign in our Front Yard Gardens…hoping to inspire passersby to follow suit!

Some years we have had quite a showing of monarchs. Gorgeous butterflies fluttering in the breeze. Little chrysalises in the most unlikely places. Opportunities to watch new butterflies hatching. And then some years, the showing of monarchs has been disappointing, to say the least. But you never know. They are back this year, for example. So, we keep doing the best we can, hoping our efforts will pay off. Meanwhile, each monarch I see makes my heart leap.

But where do I find joy in fighter jets? I confess I haven’t managed to quite get there, although I have tried. In the process of trying, however, I may have opened my heart a little bit. First, I can marvel at the choreographed production the planes deliver. I can celebrate that some of the pilots are women — something relatively new, and a measure of our expanding understanding of the gifts and talents all people offer. I can be happy for the people who find the show thrilling.

And then there is this: A few years ago, I was lamenting about the air show to someone who happened to be a Holocaust survivor. As I recall, I may even have been at his house when the planes came roaring overhead. His response? “I like the fighter jets. They make me feel safe.” He then recounted some of his Holocaust experiences to explain his perspective that American fighter jets were a good thing.

Oh.

With that one conversation, my own perspective changed immeasurably. I could easily imagine the terrified little boy he had once been, facing horrors I can barely imagine. When American fighter planes finally showed up in his corner of the world all those decades ago, they represented liberation, freedom, and safety. Even joy. The kind of joy I can barely comprehend, because my own life has not been challenged as his was.

I still have all my same reasons for disliking the air show. And my reptilian brain is as active as ever. But, when I am distressed by jets whipping around the sky above my house, I try to call on another’s perspective — one that increases my admiration and maybe even awakens my awareness that my country has, at least sometimes, been central in the causes of freedom and liberation. That is a kind of joy, and it’s one I have worked to create for myself.

“Joy” — the noun — cannot go anywhere all by itself. To be manifest, we have to do something active: We have to “en-joy;” we have to bring joy to life. We have to open our hearts — whether it’s easy, as it is with monarch butterflies, or hard, as it is with fighter jets (for me, at least). When monarch butterflies show up, joy is the source of my smile. When the fighter planes are performing overhead, my smile at perspectives that open my heart is the source of my joy.

And joy, it seems to me, is critical. The more messed up the world is, the more critical en-joying becomes. So en-joy! Please do!

Love,

Sylvia