#joyful

Every single day.

It feels like every single day we wake up expecting to wipe the sleep from our eyes, scrub off the cobwebs and wander out into the abyss, earn our daily bread and crawl back to bed to recover the spirits then rise up and do it all over again. That is what we expect, but these past few weeks it seems our Gods have other plans.

Perhaps unhappy with how much time we are spending staring into our phones catching Pikachus, the Gods, they became angry. Enraged with our disregard for our own race, they reminded us of the power of our own arrogance. They flung upon us horror, they showered us in sadness, stalled our progress with protest, they divided us in segregation and they burned us in conflagration. There was even a f*cking coup (ostensibly it’s 1962) and worst of all, the Gods punished us with the all too sudden return of BOJO.

I am not going to waste energy trying to explain how this all made me feel. I’m exhausted, I’ve spent too many nights awake late into the night picking through the dramatic exclamations of BBC News. I’m tired. I’m weathered. I’m confused.

I’m also joyful.

When I find myself in times of trouble, I don’t look for Mother Mary*; I think that her and her ilk are half of the bloody problem these days. When I find myself in times of trouble, I try to think about all the things that bring me joy. Not just happiness, not contentment, but pure unadulterated joy. The only way I can rationalise the hate and the anger is to fire back in retaliation with a rainbow unicorn fart powered jet of joy. So here we go.

This Little Piggy Went into my Mouth

My nieces went to see Disney on Ice in Sydney last week. Motherbear texted a photo of two very small people, coated in neon snowflakes and pink crystals and silver balloons. Two little people who have no idea of what happened this past week, or the extent of their elders’ arrogance and ignorance. They saw Elsa and Anna skating, and they were joyful.

Marks & Spencer’s Dinky Pork Pies; not just a pork pie, but a very, very small Pork Pie, so small that it is in fact Dinky. It is filled with meat and unlike its full sized brethren can be consumed in a single mouthful. I’ve got Bear addicted them. I’ve got the Concierge examining the contents of my shopping in anticipation of a porky present. We all eat Dinky Pork Pies and we are joyful.

I saw Ghostbusters. If you haven’t seen the new Ghostbusters, you must, it is more fun than a bubble dance rainbow party. It is fun because it turns all your boring action tropes on their head. It is fun because every ten minutes or so, Kirsten Wiig gets covered in slime. It is fun because some of the old favourites show up in surprising cameos. It is mostly fun, and you cannot underestimate just how much joy this will bring you; it is mostly fun to see Chris Hemsworth dance. Chris shakes his money-maker, thrusts his hips and grins. I laughed out loud on my own in a crowded cinema and I was joyful.

When one Chris just isn't enough

My peeps are all getting happy. New Girl lives in San Francisco with her Butcher husband. The Body will imminently spring forth a tiny Baby Body. The Kaiser of Kool is married because in the Greatest of Britains he legally can. Sunshine, starved of his namesake for two long years, is returning to the south. My peeps are realising their dreams and they are joyful.

I went to the ballet. Odette leapt and twirled and her spindly quivering fingers expressed more with each flicker than the filibustering of all those whooping wigs on the news. The music filled my empty spaces, the sound of wooden shoes hammering against the stage matched my racing heart (yes that sounds trite, but you know what I mean) as they pliéd, as they pirouetted and as they pas de deux’d. It was the Australian Ballet choreographed by Graeme Murphy and aside from the odious odour of Murdoch (they have to get their money from someone) it was perfect. I wept and I was joyful.

Cygnine perfection on a Platter.

It may seem like escapism, you may posit that I’m ignoring what is happening around us. I am not; I read the news with more diligence and attention than many of my entourage, an entourage more concerned with HiddleSwiftWestadashian. I watch, I read both sides, I do my best to make head or tail of our Topsy Turvy world. I have no answers and I am sad. But I will no longer use these pages to glorify the dickheads. The more airtime we give them, the more power the dickheads claim over the public consciousness. So I watch Michelle Obama and James Corden and Waleed Aly and I am joyful.

And finally, after months in the dark, in the rain, in the clouds and storms, finally the sun has come out…de de de doo. And I say, it’s alright. **

*In case you are 12, that is a reference to The Beatles

** In case you are still 12, that is also a reference to The Beatles