by Lucy Reeves-Khan
From Hope to Joy
Last year we created displays with people seeking sanctuary living in the Bristol Hotels, and the theme of Hope seemed a natural fit.
During these sessions, we also discussed ‘Joy’, which we have settled on as our overarching theme for this year.
I assumed Joy could be triggered by a beautiful colour, holding someone’s hand, a puppy by a fire, you know those generic greeting cards or images on posts that elicit good feelings. However, the more I thought about it, the more complicated it seems to be.
Let me explain (and I will try to be brief).
So how do I feel the Joy?
My first thought went straight to my mother. My mother is part of the ‘Silent Generation’. They’re fabulous at not making a fuss, of getting on with going forward. Her maiden name is Joyce; her married name is Reeves.
Around a decade ago she began calling herself ‘ReJOYce’ on Facebook. When she started doing this, I felt a bit ill at ease. I found the idea of expressing pure joy like that, well, embarrassing.
Around the same time, I witnessed a friend getting married, and she literally jumped for joy after she said ‘I do’. I remember thinking ‘I want that!’, which was confusing.
I’ve been married, very happily, to my own Prince Charming, for twenty-five years, but at our wedding, I didn’t want anyone to look at me, let alone to publicly jump for joy.
For many years people would say “you must be so proud of Window Wanderland, it must bring you such joy!”, but it didn’t. Why was I so embarrassed? When people said that, I just gave them a long list of negatives: Wanderland was a terrible business idea, it takes so many tears, all this creativity has nothing to do with me, it’s other people making these artworks etc etc.
Why couldn’t I access this simple thing, joy? Was there something wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just rejoice?
I needed something to change.
My personal path to joy
My path to joy began with something small: gratitude. I started noting three things I was grateful for every morning.
It took about four years, but with a regular practice of gratitude, and many Ekhardt Tolle courses, I began to feel the joy.
It would come in a deep Joyful connection with the tiny plant on my window sill. It had taken a lot of work to get that plant there – moving things around for me is difficult, but there it was.
I surprised myself with the joy that I felt hanging out my children’s wet pants. A new feeling, that meant they’d come home for a bit, bringing back some chatter to the house, following the silence they left behind after leaving to live their own lives.
It was then that I realized that my unerringly positive mother had started using the JOY in her name around the time of my father’s death.
It’s not about denying the pain. In fact it is only by acknowledging the darkness, that Joy can really come through.
They had 60 years together, and laughed until the end. So of course she wasn’t grateful that he died. I knew she must’ve been deeply lonely, and missed him beyond words, so where did joy come in?
It became clear to me that joy can’t exist without its counterpart: sorrow and pain. My mother was so grateful for everything my father had brought to her life, and it hurt to think of him, but it also brought her deep, deep joy.
Sometimes, as the neurodivergent daughter of a mother with a fierce work ethic, you live with the feeling that you can never do enough – you can always try harder. It doesn’t allow much space for enjoying a puppy by a fire, or holding hands.
In bringing a theme of Joy to Wanderland this year, and reflecting upon it, it makes sense to me. These things exist together.
When I experience joy, it always feels like it’s attached to something deeper, to sorrow maybe? It is almost as if, the further you fall, the higher you can go; as if an emotional landscape has to have these co-existing contours.
Why joy matters to me
As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I know the importance of balancing nervous systems to create the most stable container, in order to deal with whatever is thrown your way.
Now that the internet gives us the world at the end of our fingers, it is so easy to be pulled into the negative: into the doom, the fear, that grabs our attention and we have been told “sells”.
There are plenty of deep reasons to be sorrowful. For me personally, the more that I can be part of a joyful movement, the more I can begin to rebalance.
February’s window was a reflection of how much I believe in redressing this balance.
It took me a long time to get the right quote. I wanted something to call people to not be scared, to resist the fear, the endless stream of ‘evil’ wrapping around the media.
It was Mr Mandela who said “May your choices reflect your hopes not fears” which I felt summed up this idea perfectly.
I do not believe that war is inevitable, I do not believe people are born evil. I think we have a fight on our hands to not be sucked into a narrative of fear. That’s why I personally stopped doing social media years ago. It just shook my nervous system too much, and ate my hours up.
The more we can access a calm place in ourselves to make decisions from, the better for everyone.
That’s where the rebalancing effect of joy comes in. And I embrace it.
Reasons to ReJOYce
In September this year, my husband and I renewed our vows in a garden surrounded by friends and family.
There I was, whooping down the aisle. It wasn’t about me; it wasn’t about me being looked at; it was simply that after what I can confidently describe as a few bad decades, there is still such great depth of joy in our lives.
These days, I can find joy in those small things, like buying new colours of tissue paper. Seriously, I am filling the house with tissues of joy! For the last 12 years, Wanderland has existed on standard colours of cheaper school packs of tissue paper. This year, I want to use some more unusual colours.
As I write, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, delighting in colours with names like Robin egg blue, Zippy grape and Noble Gold. I have been contacting wrapping companies, looking for charity discounts etc. In order to illustrate what we do, I sent links to our gallery of window displays and I had a wonderful reply from Nicole at Foldabox: “They look totally amazing! Truly impressive and what a wonderful community spirit they create!”
There is Joy in each window display you see, as there has been much work involved, sometimes arguments, tears and a mountain of time invested in each one.
So now, I’ll take the compliments around Wanderland. And yes, it’s hard work to hold it together – with love and sellotape – but that’s not a reason to deny the joy. In fact, it’s actually the reason anyone who’s involved with Window Wanderland deserves the joy, including me.
Yes, it’s hard work to hold it together – with love and sellotape – but that’s not a reason to deny the joy. It’s actually the reason anyone who’s involved with Window Wanderland deserves the joy, including me.