The Discipline of Joy
3/10/2010
Joy's a choice. Joy's a discipline. Misery's easy. Sometimes, you don't feel like you can handle the burden of joy, so you slouch and frump and sigh and feel exhausted. Joy can be a real pain, like doing elevated push-ups on your TRX system in the basement. Right now, the joy doesn't want to ignite. I'm feeling the pressure of writing against the schedule of outside things. Inside vs. outside. I have to rush back to school today--my writing day--to sit in a PhD oral defense. Tomorrow, I have to teach, though I can get in some writing after. But Friday, I rush away to Tucson Festival of Books. Love Tucson, love my friends there, love the festival, and I love fancy hotel weekends with Cinderella. But...Teresita...Tomas...deadlines...work. I can't get it done. So my decision today is to embrace the discipline of Joy. Capital J. Because I'm feeling a li'l beat.

Wait. I could just Kerouac that and make it Beat. Make beatness into Beatitudes.

Perhaps you have seen the Lakota thought that you need to arise and thank the day; then give thanks for the breakfast; then give thanks for life; then give thanks for work and all things, and if you can't give thanks, then you can own your own misery. Ha ha. Yeah, bouwee!

What has been, as warned by all my friends, a total time-suck, has been this new foray into Facebook. But what a joyous thing it has been. I like it. I am too dense about computers to get much out of it, which is a good thing. But the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful Cinderella runs all the clicks and whizzbangs for me. Keep dropping me messages over there! I am having a great time answering you.

And I have really enjoyed the continuing craft discussion here. I have gotten emails, comments, twitters and messages on fb about the thoughts I post about writing. I like it. I will keep that up as long as you like it, too. If you have questions, get 'em to me by whatever means you like, and I'll try to answer here.

You might notice the website changing. Yes, we are redesigning it. A new phase is upon us, what with Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush coming out, followed by the paperback of Into the Beautiful North. I also hope to submit Hummingbird's Daughter II (whatever we call it) by summer. And the UK edition of ITBN will be out just as we set foot in London in July. Big cool stuff.

You know, when you're a poor boy in San Diego or Tijuana, listening to scratchy records all night because you can't sleep, and you're thinking about some big scary future that you don't think will happen, and your little 69 cent drug store notebook is filling up with absurd meditations on the heavy wowness of the universe, you don't know. You don't imagine. But you hope. If you're lucky, you get kissed a little. All right, you get kissed a lot. But you would trade all those kisses to get any sense of hope at all that this dream will come true.

Yo, I kept the kisses. What--am I stupid? But look at what happened. On the days when Joy hides, I sit back and look. I get to do the thing I love. I try, as Rumi suggested, to be the thing I love. That I get love back from you is...well. It's simply too much to comment on here.

I have conversed with readers from Australia, Bahrain, Chile, China, England, France, Germany, Holland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, Siberia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates. WHAT? Really? Oh, Luis--I wish I could go back in time and let you know that someone would be listening. But you were too busy fretting and working, and that work made me grow up...in fits and starts...your scared poverty nights made these days. So, thanks, son.

And thank you, mis amigos. See you in Tucson. See you in my dreams. Or, um, on Facebook.

XXX, L


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