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Seek Delight No Matter What

 

 

A while back, one of my children used the term toxic positivity to describe how I deal with problems. Refusing to acknowledge suffering and pretending everything’s fine makes people feel worse. When a kid of mine is hurting, it is so uncomfortable for me that I’ve tried to encourage them to consider the pain a lesson–to stop feeling it so I don’t have to either. You’d think I’d be more aware of not causing others to feel invisible, having felt it a time or two myself. I’ve only just realized they didn’t need me to feel the pain for them. All they were asking for was the space to process the emotions themselves.

 

This urge to run away from hard feelings is difficult to look at in ourselves, especially when it’s damaging to others. Who wants to admit we’ve hurt someone already in pain by trying to convince them to deny it? Whole lives have been lived in denial. It’s more popular than Disneyworld.

 

 

 

Denying physical pain is at least more obvious. I remember when my then tiny son sliced his lip on a glass table during our stay at a friend’s house. She had thoughtfully arranged for all the kids to make s’mores by the fire. As a mother herself, her annoyance with his injury came as a mild shock. She brusquely announced we should go on with the planned activity. To her displeasure, I stepped away and called the doctor. At first, I was angry that she discouraged me from seeking medical attention for my child. Then I realized how difficult it must be to live in a world with no room for pain, delay or flexibility and my heart softened toward her. A little. Don’t mess with mama bear’s precious cubs.

 

Pain can trigger old business. Most of us handle it in the way we were conditioned by our families of origin. But if we want it to go away, we must acknowledge it. Physical pain needs action—stop doing what hurts. Tend the wound. Emotional pain wants to cycle through us. Without the process, we end up trapping it somewhere inside our body, causing more trouble than if we’d faced it in the first place. Ignoring pain all together silences our body and tamps down our intuition. We need that inner voice loud and clear.
 

 

But what do we do if a crappy experience is ongoing—if we have to grieve or endure a long term illness? During Covid Times, some of us have had our whole world shaken like a snow globe, except it was more sh!t storm than pretty snowfall. How do we allow the feelings to cycle through if the circumstances remain? How can we be happy at all? 

 

Jack Gilbert’s poetry provides a road map to joy through the sh!t storm. I first learned of him through author, Elizabeth Gilbert’s work (no relation). Despite his extraordinary talent, he chose to live in obscurity so that he could enjoy his days traveling the world without the heavy trappings of traditional success. His poetry reflects the belief that even in the midst of most dire circumstances, we are hard wired for delight. And we must seek it out, no matter what.

 

A Brief For The Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Jack Gilbert

 

And that, dear reader is why the artists have been put on this earth. To delight us with their creative genius, to move us to tears of joy, even in the midst of suffering. Particularly during Covid, some writers hesitated to put out work that was light and fun, concerned that it might be viewed as disrespectful or insensitive. If you subscribe to Gilbert’s view, it is dismissive of the suffering not to go full throttle towards delight. Joy is a human imperative.

 

I know of at least one such writer who does not have it in her to hold back her talents for any such prohibition on joy. Vanessa Leigh King is ALL GO in that regard. Her debut novel, A Certain Appeal, due out November 2, 2021, is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set in the burlesque scene of modern New York City. This is a story near and dear to my heart. My own family name duo, ‘Elizabeth and Jane,’ my daughter and me, resulted from my Jane Austen superfan status. At the very height of Covid, Vanessa succeeded in doing what some of us writers considered the impossible: finding a publisher for her magnificent, joyful, delight of a book.

 

If there is an ounce of justice in this world, A Certain Appeal will be a New York Times Best Seller. It is that good. The retelling has all the romantic tension and chemistry as the original, but King’s modern twist is distinctly empowered, body positive and inclusive. The main character, Elizabeth Bennet, comes into burlesque at a low point in her life, and for her, the scene was an immediate source of joy and fun and strength. Being cheered for while onstage makes her feel she’s someone to be celebrated, and that’s an energy she takes into her life offstage. At the same time, performing has Bennet and her friends —intentionally—putting themselves in a situation where they might be jeered or put down, but this too can be a source of strength. They face that fear head on. The end result is living a life less less likely to make decisions out of fear.

The characters are so true to life that I am dragging out finishing the book because I am going to miss them all. They are my friends.  ​

 

Because her art serves humanity in this most fundamental way, Vanessa King will be my guest today, Friday October 29, 2021 on my Instagram Live Series Tell Me All About it. Come check us out at NOON on @elizabethheise.writer. If you can’t catch it live, it will be saved on my IGTV.

 

We will talk all about the book of course and also get to know Vanessa. She came upon her knowledge of this scene organically, having spent two years picking up the peelings of the best in the NYC burlesque scene. Apparently she has the glitter in her pumps to prove it! Vanessa will be coming to us from Austin, Texas where she lives with her Ron Swanson-esque husband, paper craft-obsessed daughter, and an elderly feline gentleman whose life she’s plotting to upend with the introduction of a kitten.
I can’t wait to talk to Vanessa all about her amazing book and her delightful self.

 

As a special treat, I will be giving away a copy of her book to the first person to comment “I want A Certain Appeal!”

Join us.

 

Love,

Elizabeth

 

WRITING PROMPT:  Where do you find joy even in difficult circumstances? 

 

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