Feasting on Micro-Joys

no such thing as over-imbibing

Your reminder that you can find or create joy while also feeling fear, rage, despair, and other prickly crap.

(We use em dashes, but never AI)

Oh hi. Good morning.

Did you wake up to news that feels like being force fed a garbage sandwich smeared with manure mayo and a side of phlegm dumplings in loogie soup?

Same, girl, same.

What’s a tender soul to do in this seriously unprecedented (pronounced “fucked up”) reality?

We gotta be greedy for joy, gobbling it up like a Roomba sucking up cookie crumbs. But then we have to burp it out. Funny thing about joy, it isn’t a hoardable asset. Joy is contagious. It expands and grows to feed anyone who wants to dine on joy juice. It’s not physically possible to keep it to yourself, it’s too big and powerful to be contained within the human body. Jump for joy? Burst with joy? It’s meant to be shared.

That’s the big joy.

We’re chasing the micro-joys here. Not banquets, but morsels—mere chocolate chips. It is possible to feast on little nibbles. Gorging ourselves on micro-joys is the antidote to the shit sandwich menu.

Here’s the catch: we must be active participants. Joy is a trickster who likes to hide— but not an asshole. As soon as we start to search for joy it will appear, but most likely where we least expect it. The sun shining through the window at a certain angle, landing on a plant or book or cat just so. A line of traffic stopping for a mama duck and her babies, then you get to watch the last little runt scrambling over the curb. A song, but not just any song, that song, the one that means so much, at just the right time. A dolphin frolicing in the river at sunset.

Joy is also an eager spore. Not slut shaming, but with the smallest effort on our part, joy will fertilize anything and everything it reaches. A quick exchange with a stranger at a bus stop or self-check line at Kroger. Ensuring a barista feels seen by sharing an extremely silly joke. Literally stopping to smell the flowers. Looking around. Noticing.

Joy is not frivolous. Joy is nourishing. The promise of a sip of joy prosecco is the only way we can stomach the loogie soup.

We can’t expect it to come to our door, press our Ring and shout into the camera: It’s me, Joy, I’m here to make your day. We gotta chase after it. Tackle it.

We gotta create it. If there was a Pinterest board about crafting joy, it would be mostly close up pictures of the little details that seem mundane until you look real close. And a handful of pictures of cookies. And flowers. And soft colorful things. And our smiling friends. There are no ads on this pinterest board.

I’m making myself sick on metaphor over here, leaning on a table splattered with current event remnants of turd meatballs in sewage sauce. The world feels fucking grim, with no reprieve on the horizon. Now —more than ever— seeking, finding, making, sharing, and feasting on these microjoys will sustain us.

The very first thing I read this morning, before the news, came from musician Nick Cave’s letter The Red Hand Files. Responding to a reader asking about his stance on things, he replies:

I see the world as broken but beautiful, believing that it is our urgent and moral duty to repair it where we can and not to cause further harm, or worse, wilfully usher in its destruction. I think we consist of more than mere atoms crashing into each other, and that we are, instead, beings of vast potential, placed on this earth for a reason – to magnify, as best we can, that which is beautiful and true.

Go forth, my friends, and magnify, as best you can, what is beautiful and true.

see you in a few days

spread this joy like frosting on a cupcake:

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

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words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025