joy as an atomic bomb

in defense of happiness being just as compelling as grief

joy - abel-dominique boyé

I am eavesdropping on a conversation about a bruise; I am eavesdropping on an argument about an attraction to grief. My mother says people who watch sad movies watch them because they don’t have enough grief in their own lives, but I don’t see her watching happy movies, either. My mother doesn’t watch any movie these days. I am trying to tell a joke, but I am met with worried looks. I am trying to describe a bruise, but I can’t stop laughing. In my head, the bruise and the joke are the same color, but only one movie can be watched at a time. I know I am not making sense, let me rephrase: here is a story where anger and joy are synonymous.

I go to California for a weekend and take a walk with a friend. We lie on the beach, we get high on the floor of her dorm room, she confesses a secret. The secret is this: one of her friends thought I was terrifying in high school. She tells me her friend saw me in a fit of rage, yelling so loud my anger filled the room in volume alone. I ask my friend: “do you think I’m scary?” She laughs. “Not at all.”

I go home for a weekend and take a walk with a friend. We pass by our old high school, we retrace the steps of our younger selves, he points out the courtyard. He tells me a secret: one time, he heard me screaming from the courtyard all the way on the second floor. It was the day final grades had been released and I had done so well on an exam I had been bumped up an entire letter. “I didn’t know it was possible to scream that loud,” he says, “for a brief moment, I was terrified.”

This movie is looping again; if volume were an indicator of emotion, every single feeling would be synonymous for me. I do not know how to feel anything quietly (I do not want to feel anything quietly). I am watching the movie again, except this time it is the bruise. I am watching the movie again, except this time it is the joke. I am trying to explain how the movies are playing at the same time, but the words overlap and the audience only has one set of eyes. I am screaming on the stage take this joy and chew on it, but the words taste like grief. The credits roll, the seats are cleaned, both movies are replaced with something new.

I am running barefoot on asphalt in the summer heat. My feet will be covered in blisters tomorrow, but none of that matters in the moment. I trip and fall, blood is dripping down my legs, I don’t feel any of it. There is a car heading towards me; I don’t notice until the driver is handing me her shoes, asking why I’m on my knees in the middle of the road. I don’t remember what I say. I forget the fear of the car in place of the fear of the house and learn some fears are larger than others. At some point, I end up on her doorstep.

I am barreling across the country in a plane I bought a ticket for last week. I don’t have the money or the time for this trip, but none of that matters in the moment. I forget the joy of stability in place of the joy of her presence and learn some joys are larger than others. She meets me at the airport and we are racing across the California freeway. She is telling me how it’s been so long since we last saw each other; I am thinking about the time I walked two miles half-barefoot to the front of her door in a delusion. I am thinking about how my feet end up at her apartment in both stories.

The palm trees zip by us so quickly the leaves blend into each other. It is the beginning of October, but a whisper of summer remains and wind from the slightly open window brushes sweat off my forehead. There is music already playing from her speaker when we reach her apartment and she is pulling me to the center of the room. I am singing into an imaginary microphone — for the next two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, her patchy dorm room rug becomes a stage, her crappy dorm light a spotlight.

My voice is off-key and off-beat, but my voice cracks and awkward early-starts fade to nothing in the light of the small heaven we’ve created. Her laughter provides the backing vocals to my half-belting-half-screaming and I swear the sound of her laugh could put all the lead guitarists in the world to shame. When I pause to catch my breath, I catch a glimpse of us in the window reflection: we look like a movie, the way our hair is wild, flying about so fast we blend into each other.

There is a bomb in my chest. This is the movie I want to loop in perpetuity; this is the joy I want to hold between my teeth. Both films continue to loop in tandem, but my eyes only have a hunger for the second. There is a feeling I am trying to hold in between my teeth. I bite down. It tastes of joy.

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This post has an additional On Writing.

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