Small Joys

God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
Till one day it cracks them open.
- Rumi

Tonight E fell asleep on my chest. She had just finished feeding, and I had propped her on her side between my breasts to burp her a bit. She curled both hands up near her chin, tucked her face down into the shadows next to a fold in my shirt, and closed her eyes. I felt the weight of her warm, milk-tinged softness slowly relax. The two cats were dozing next to each other on the bed, one pressed against my legs with her head on outstretched paws, the other curled into a black ball of fur facing the opposite direction. It was one of those moments I wanted to freeze in time.

Life at home is outwardly uneventful. Today I did not perform an operation, write a prescription, attend a meeting. I barely even held a two-way conversation. Today I marveled at small things. A cat’s eyes squinted shut in sleep. The turn of phrase in a book, savored deliciously in my mind. The fresh water and folded laundry left by D near the bed. The baby’s hilarious looks of concentration while pooping; the smile she gives in mid-feed, mouth still full. Like her, I see at close range. It’s a world of microcosmic wonder.

These are the small, private joys. Not the kind that makes you go dance in the street, but the kind that burrows quietly inside, that is slowly and unexpectedly unwrapped. Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy (Proverbs 14). These are joys in the things I see and feel, though not much is said. It’s the same sense I have in nature, a sense of deep happiness and wonder that cannot be taken away, that seems a sign of the Spirit within and a promise of the eternity to come. This is what I’m delighting in most about her, this sense of wonder and promise she brings into my life.