Joy and COVID

I read this Mary Oliver poem (photo above) eight weeks into COVID isolation and it struck me. I'm noticing that I suddenly and unexpectedly feel depression, and frustration, and every once in a while suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy. I love the idea that not hesitating when one is experiencing joy is a way of fighting back. Not of fighting back in a way that's against the depression or frustration, trying to make them go away, but a way of fighting back that says joy is also available, that adds joy to our current palette of experiences. I'd like to remember Mary Oliver's thought that joy is not meant to be a crumb. In my personal Alexander Technique practice this week I've decided to practice allowing joy to be more than a crumb, to notice when I habitually diminish joy, and to practice pleasure not as a salve or distraction or glossing over but as a radical statement of resilience and resistance. I hope that in among all the other parts of your experience these days, you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy. 

Be well,
-Lyra