Joy Is the Helium Balloon of Emotions
Don't chase it. Invite it.
In this issue:
A Letter from Shelley
May Art
Recipe: Berry Delicious Breakfast Bowl
May Pappus: Joy is the Helium Balloon of Emotions
Journal Prompt
Writing News
Publishing Industry News
A Letter from Shelley
Dear Loyal Reader:
This month’s topic is JOY.
We all want more joy, don’t we? However, chasing after joy sometimes leads to frustration, ennui, anger, jealousy, and other not-so-pleasant feelings. Will joy find you when you least expect it? Can you do anything to welcome joy into your life?
May seems like the right month to explore these questions, what with the sloughing off of winter and all and the expectations we put on summer vacations. Let’s take a moment to think about how joy operates before we go crazy chasing after it.
An announcement that MIGHT make you joyful
I’m gonna keep the main essay shorter than usual. Brevity. Succinctness. Concision. Economy. Just getting to the point already. A fun writerly fact is that it’s harder to write a short piece than a long one. Many writers and famous figures have spoken on the topic from Blaise Pascal to Henry David Thoreau and Benjamin Franklin.
“I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.”--Ben Franklin
Perhaps this one, found in a letter written by Mark Twain, is most appropriate here. Emphasis mine.
“You’ll have to excuse my lengthiness—the reason I dread writing letters is because I am so apt to get to slinging wisdom & forget to let up. Thus much precious time is lost.”--Mark Twain.
You probably don’t need my “wisdom” slinging at you in such copious amounts, so, Dear Reader, I will keep it brief(er) this month, and you can let me know if that worked out better for you.
Also, a welcome to all you new subscribers! I’m deeply honored you’d make room for me and Pink Dandelions once a month in your inbox. We all have limited time and energy. I truly appreciate it.
Cheers!
Shelley
May Art
Continuing with my drawing efforts. Working from a sales catalog image, I sketched with pencil in my art journal (it’s getting easier!) and then went to work with the markers. Layering shades is the key for complexions, I’ve discovered. First the rosy cheeks, THEN a wash of brown/gold over it. I added the word “JOY” because that’s how she looked to me. Voila! I had my topic for this month’s newsletter. Practicing art continues to bring me a feeling of accomplishment and, maybe more important, focus.
Easy Recipe–Berry Delicious Breakfast Bowl
I’m currently on a health & fitness journey and came up with this high-protein meal that is going to be my go-to summer breakfast. It’s so good.
¾ cup Oikos Greek Yogurt Triple Zero Vanilla
½ banana
1 cup Wyman’s frozen berry mix (thaw in ‘fridge unless you like it icy)
1 tbs chopped walnuts
1 tbs pumpkin seeds
Sprinkle of cinnamon
Layer this (seriously delicious) yogurt, then berries and banana. Sprinkle walnuts, seeds, and cinnamon on top. Enjoy! If you want to lower the fat, eliminate the walnuts (5 g) and/or seeds (5 g.) Most of the carbs come from the fruit, but they are so good and nutritious.
MyFitnessPal Nutrition Estimates: 322 cal. 67 g carbs. 11 g fat. 22 g protein. 24 g sugar. 64 g sodium.
May Pappus
Joy is the Helium Balloon of Emotions
A pappus is the seed fluff drifting on a current of air, carrying the seed to fertile soil in which it can germinate.
What is joy?
It’s that feeling you experience from time to time, often when you least expect it.
A feeling of lightness, of delight, of warmth, of laughter shooting up inside your chest.
Joy is the helium balloon of emotions, a round, full, brightly-colored bubble.
But then:
The string slips from your grasping fingertips, and you stare up after your joy as it floats up, up over the telephone poles, the treetops, and into the clouds away from you. Where did it go? Why did it go? How can you get it back?
Sometimes you go chasing it.
Sometimes you chase it even when you forgot what it looked like or how it came to you in the first place.
I have this theory. If you chase joy, it will elude you.
If you make joy your goal, you’ll make yourself miserable striving for it.
If you sit around expecting it, you’ll be waiting forever.
Joy sneaks up on you.
A Time I Felt a Rush of Unanticipated Joy
It was the end of August. Hubby and I had just moved to San Diego for a kind of trial run. He’d taken a temporary position that would last several months and had gone out west ahead of me.
Earlier that summer I’d flown to the midwest to interview Martha Brosio, the woman who hired me to co-write her memoir about her beloved husband, Richard Brosio, who had chosen to stop eating & drinking after suffering with primary progressive aphasia, a terminal illness that gradually took away his ability to speak, write, and process.
Richard had been a gifted college professor/philosopher. Besides Martha, I’d also interviewed family members and his doctor. I’d read his scholarly articles and books over the remainder of the summer, and I’d created a working outline. By the time I flew to San Diego, I was ready to begin drafting the book which, by its very nature, induced feelings of sadness, sympathy, respect, admiration, and a sense of life’s swift passage. One day you’re in high school falling in love; the next you’re watching your beloved slip from the world. Bittersweet.
(The Last Ten Days: Academia, Dementia, and the Choice to Die turned out to be, ultimately, a love story, a death & dying memoir, & a philosophy book all intertwined in a succinct 150 pages.)
Along with these tangled emotions, however, I felt excited about the opportunity to write an actual book that would be published. I also felt a mighty responsibility to do this job well. I believed in the message Martha wanted to convey.
So here I was on the west coast about to write my first published book. I was about to turn 50, a milestone birthday. Menopause was on the horizon. I’d lived in Maine my entire life. Maine is a cold place. I mean, five or six months of winter! Iffy springs!
Summers are nice, of course, but short. You end up cramming too much into those months: family reunions, cookouts, trips to the beach, camping weekends, hiking, more cookouts, etc. Busy, busy, busy.
That first San Diego morning Craig went off to work, leaving me alone in our downtown Gaslamp Quater apartment on K Street with a view of the convention center just across the trolley tracks. I got up, made myself a cup of coffee, grabbed my journal, and moseyed out to the balcony to start my day. I opened up my journal and began to write about how I might start the memoir . . . and the words simply flowed out.
By the end of that day I’d have a first draft of the prologue complete, but I didn’t know it right then. After a few pages, I put my pen down, sipped my coffee. As I looked out over the cityscape, it hit me: pure joy.
I felt buoyant. The sun was shining, but it wasn’t hot. The air was warm. Palm trees swayed in the light Pacific breeze. The air smelled different than Maine. I looked out on a city rather than the rural roads I’d spent my life traversing.
I never expected to live in San Diego. I never expected to go so far. I not only had a job writing a book with a compelling narrative and lovely co-author, but also the words were flowing when I called for them. (Of course there would be times the words didn’t come so easily; we do have to actually work for it sometimes.) I didn’t have to worry about 9-5 work or family or dog or community obligations or house. For a few blissful months, at least, I’d be on an adventure on the opposite coast with my husband of 30 years and a whole new culture and restaurants and museums and everything to explore.
I just sat there, grinning, basking in the pure joy of the moment. I knew it wouldn’t last, so I opened myself to the experience, soaking it in. “Remember this moment,” I told myself. “This is special.”
It didn’t last more than that morning, maybe a few hours, but the memory has. I hadn’t looked for it that day, that moment. It just came to me, unexpectedly.
I guess my point about joy is, don’t chase it.
We’ve All Done This
The special day arrives. Maybe you’d expected joy to wrap itself around you after reaching this particular milestone or attending a big event like a wedding, a birthday, a prom, an award ceremony. The anticipation of joy has buoyed you through days, weeks, maybe even month. Now the day arrives and, okay, yes, it’s kind of fun you suppose, but in a way it’s also sorta a let-down. It doesn’t meet the high expectations you set for it. Getting ready was more than half the fun.
Remembering this event now, you feel happy, yes. You created some good memories, and processing it at leisure brings you pleasure. You even think of it as one of the best times of your life, but were you joyful at the time? Often, I believe the answer is no. It’s too much to take in or you’ve put too much pressure on yourself or who knows what.
The thing is, at the moment, you want to feel joyful, but it just isn’t there. Not when you call for it.
Make Room for Joy
So if you can’t chase joy, how can you experience it more often? The best you can do, I believe, is make room in your life for joy. Create an environment that nurtures joy, that attracts it. Give that helium plenty of oxygen in the surrounding atmosphere to hold it up.
Specifically:
Build good habits that, if consistently applied, blossom, at unexpected moments, into joy.
Practice gratitude. Take moments every day to appreciate the good things in your life. The view of the lilac outside your window through the curtains. The smell of coffee in the morning. The curl of woodsmoke from the fire. The sound of kids laughing on the beach. A sentence that flows from somewhere in your subconscious. The perfect metaphor. The song from the summer before your senior year of high school playing on the grocery store speakers.
(Maybe that’s nostalgia, but nostalgia, too, is a kind of bittersweet joy.)
Create an inviting environment. This might mean organizing or minimizing your stuff, eating more healthy foods and moving your body more, taking a class and learning a new skill, reaching out to friends and family more often, journaling, meditating, letting go of old habits and people and things that no longer serve you.
Put together a vision board either using paper and pens and collage materials or make a virtual board on Pinterest. When something pleases you, add it. Don’t judge yourself. Don’t worry about making this board perfect. Just use your instincts and imagination.
Don’t make joy your goal. Make it the result.
Joy is found in small moments. It’s found in doing the things that are not obligatory, but delightful to you. It’s created not by chasing success or fame or recognition but by applying yourself to meaningful tasks, hobbies, and relationships. When it comes to you, acknowledge it, revel in it, take a photo or make a mental snapshot of it, write a poem or journal about it so that you can relive it again in your memory.
Journal Prompt
Chose one or both.
Write about a time you experienced profound joy.
How can you invite joy into your life starting today?
Writing News
I’m still writing away every other week for the Type M for Murder blog. On my last post, I examined the top 4 Amazon Kindle ebooks in my category to check out the covers and see how my Canva cover attempt stacked up.
https://typem4murder.blogspot.com/2025/05/cover-craft-examining-four-online-top.html
Strawberry Moon Mystery, the “long” short Olivia Lively story has some new scenes in it. I’m coming up on a year with this one as I drafted it on June 21, 2024! Hopefully she’ll be ready to go by June 21, 2025. I’m thinking I will experiment with KDP indie publishing with this story and hope it attracts some new readers to give Final Draft and Night Moves a try.
Publishing Industry News
Moving on Up
Congratulations to my fellow Encircle author, Catherine Dilts, for having her first book in her series picked up by Harlequin WorldWide Mysteries! The Body in the Cattails goes out to Harlequin book club subscribers and then will be available in August from Harlequin! Read more about this on https://typem4murder.blogspot.com/2025/05/twists-and-turns.html
AI Egg in the Face
The community is abuzz about an AI-generated best of summer reading book list that came out in the Chicago Sun-Times this week. Read all about it on Kathleeen Schmidt’s Publishing Confidential Substack here:
Unreachable You?
Are you looking for more inspiration to get off of social media and start living without worrying about “showing up” online day in and day out? Me, too. Honestly, taking Facebook and Instagram off my phone has been a game-changer. I only pop onto them on my laptop when I have something to promote. I’m using it rather than it using me. If you are interested:
Check out Rea Frey & Alex Holguin’s Unreachable newsletter. They were on the ABC news live segment talking about how to entice kids to get off their screens this summer, as well, so I’m not the only one impressed by their take on the topic of unplugging ourselves from the matrix.
Lookin good.
Thank you for the mention. And the reminder to just let joy happen.