We’re at that point in quarantine where, for better or for worse, the smallest joys can feel like miracles. Perhaps I shouldn’t call them small. Perhaps we just have finally cleared enough noise to pay attention. Like when my mom, while we’re on the phone together, describes the birds coming up the feeder outside her window in a play by play. She never understood people who’d just sit and watch the birds, she says, until now when it seems like a lot of excitement. And me, interested in what happens next.
Here’s my small joy for today, a day that was shaping up to be pretty tough and emotional despite all my checklists and schedules and doing everything right. Some days are just tough. Especially when you’re living in physical isolation for two months and counting. In the mid-afternoon, I picked up a purple packet of Pop Rocks (say that five times fast) — some gimmicky kind that I got in a party bag from my apartment management and had left out on the counter for weeks. I didn’t have any agenda or illusions about it making me feel better, just a lack of will-power and jittery hands that wanted to grab something.
But when I sat back on my balcony to work, opened the small bag of Pop Rocks, and poured the first pieces into my mouth . . . team, I was, amazed? It sounds so small and dumb, but I think I’d forgotten what Pop Rocks do — those crinkly bursts vibrating in your mouth. It made me laugh and smile. It’d been so long, maybe a decade, since I’ve had them and it made me feel like a kid again.
I don’t know why, but those few minutes eating Pop Rocks helped. My day didn’t do a 180, but it did pivot this evening. So, yes, we’re at the point in quarantine where, for better or for worse, my happiness is temporarily dependent on Pop Rocks. Or finding unexpected excitement and happiness in days that are running together. Little joy by little joy, though, we make it through.
With Love,
Natalie