When Shayna isn’t by my side, I can usually find her sleeping in the nearest bright circle of sunlight wherever it might be as it travels across my rugs. I believe it’s more than instinct that drives her. She knows – in her flesh, in her spirit, in the way she sees life as a series of nows – how to seek (and give) pleasure and comfort even on cloudy days.
We can learn a lot from our dogs. For them, joy exists in the moments of the day – in chasing a butterfly, in cuddling with their person, in seeking the sunlight.
Because we live not only in the present, but also in our memories and our projections of the future, joy may sometimes seem elusive. Our timelines can be so long, so dense, that we will cull from the past and what we see in our future according to our current moods. And on cloudy days, such as the current crisis, everything can look so dark and forbidding.
May we all find joy in the small things we discover today, in the sharing of a tender moment, in chasing a flight of fantasy, in the patches of sunlight that filter into our lives.