Unexpected Joy
My husband bought a hummingbird feeder earlier this year. He filled it with nectar, hung it from a tree in our backyard, and … nothing happened. Days, weeks, months went by without a single hummingbird sighting. All along, I argued he hung it too high.
Can hummingbirds even fly that high? I asked, a smirk on my face.
How do you think they fly over the fence? he replied, a smirk on his.
And then, one unsuspecting afternoon, when I just happened to look up from my phone and glance out the window at exactly the right time, I saw one—a tiny little thing, wings a blur, helping herself. Undeniably, a sight to behold. And I felt it: unexpected joy. Had I not looked out the window at that precise moment, I would have missed her.
I’m not saying looking out the window is the secret, but maybe looking up from your phone is.
It starts with paying attention. With noticing the world, studying what makes it sing, finding redemption in anything and everything. This is a kind of love, I think. To walk along a broken earth looking for flowers in the cracks of sidewalks.
It’s in the chocolate chip cookies left on your porch on an ordinary Wednesday. It’s in the spontaneous dance party before school, in the first crunch of fall leaves, in the baby girl trying to stuff a pumpkin in her purse. It’s in the neglected tomatoes bursting from the ground, multiplying anyway—reminding you, always, that God is God and you are not.
It’s in the discipline of rising in the dark, writing next to a candle while the children sleep. It’s in the old sweater that still fits just right, in the peach galette you made with your own two hands. It’s in the sound of tiny fingers playing your grandmother’s piano.
It’s in the friend who asks, “how are you … really?” and is willing to hear the answer.
It’s in the cheerful melody of a Kindergarten teacher singing her heart out over Zoom. It’s in the $3 bouquet that lasts two weeks, in the daily thrill of a faded trampoline, in the fourth apology of the night. It’s in the birth announcement text message—reminding you, again, that miracles abound, even this year. It’s in the sighting of a ladybug, in the exact moment you need a nudge to keep writing.
We are all living through collective trauma this year.
How many of us are still holding our breath?
Crying on the bathroom floor?
And yet.
When we take a moment to look up—to look outside ourselves and our own shattered hearts—it’s all still there, just like it always was: unexpected joy.
