Finding joy when everything seems terrible
Because everyone deserves the chance to fly.
On the drive home from my son’s swimming lesson the other week, my five year old said, “Hey, that sign said a baby is missing!”
“What?” I asked, assuming this was typical little-kid nonsense, until I saw the now familiar KIDNAPPED written in all caps on a poster hanging from a street pole. I turned the corner, knowing it was a photo of Kfir Bibas on the poster. A missing baby.
“Hmm, I’m not sure what that was!” I said in a weirdly upbeat tone, despite being sure what that was.
“It was definitely a missing baby poster, like when there’s a missing cat,” my precocious child continued. “How can a baby be missing, Mommy? It just crawled out the door?”
“Haha, no, I don’t think so, that would be very strange. Who knows! Wow, look at all this traffic…”
I changed the subject, which is something I’ve become skilled at since I have kids who often ask questions I can’t or don’t know how to answer.
It’s been more than a year and I’ve somehow avoided talking to them about the gruesome details of October 7, keeping discussions about the war in Israel vague and distanced so as not to terrify them. I’m all for honesty with most tough parenting topics, but explaining that Jewish children were stolen from their beds and no one knows if they or their parents are alive is a bit more real talk than I can stomach. My kids already wake up at all hours, worrying about all the things that might go bump in the night, so I’d prefer not to throw more oil on that fire.
It’s been 437 days. It’s inconceivable.
I wrote this piece for Kveller last month. It’s the only byline I’ve had in a long time, apart from my corporate writing. I keep trying to write about other things, but the hostages and war and antisemitism and and and… it all takes up a lot of space in my brain.
In fact, if you glanced quickly at my Substack for the first time and only saw the recent posts, you’d assume my whole shtick was being a Jew. Before, it was always there, but it wasn’t really a thing. And now, it’s THE THING. Even when I’m thinking about all the other things, I’m still thinking about THE THING. And if I don’t think about it for a while, I feel guilty, or like I should be doing something to stop all the bad stuff from getting even worse,
I went with my sister to see Wicked last week.
When I first heard they were adapting one of my favourite musicals into a movie starring Ariana Grande, my expectations were quite low. I’ve seen the live show several times, and I couldn’t imagine how that magical experience could translate to the screen.
Then the movie came out, and everyone started FREAKING out over it, saying I had to see it, I’d love it, it would change my life. I was still skeptical about seeing the film, not to mention its 160-minute runtime. But I hate missing out on a cultural moment, and I know every single word to every single song, so of course I had to go.
And whaddya know, the masses were right on this one. It was so good. I thought the length would kill me, but I loved every second so much I didn’t even risk a bathroom break. I sang, I laughed, I cried. I pumped my fists in the air like some sort of crazed sports fan. The movie unleashed a deeply repressed sense of joy that I didn’t realize I could still feel between the exhaustion of parenting, the hardships of life, and the crumbling of the world.
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After exiting the theatre, my sister and I both remarked that we felt like our bodies were vibrating as we re-entered the world in a sort of Wicked hangover state. The power of art and music is truly wild. I’m still not even sure if it really was that good or if it’s just precisely what I needed in my life at that moment. And now my expectations for Part 2 have gone from zero to extremely inflated. I doubt it will match the transcendent experience I had with Part 1, but if it’s even half as enjoyable, sign me up.
It’s hard to grasp how anyone can enjoy anything right now, when there are so many sad and scary things to preoccupy our minds. But maybe these unexpected bursts of pure delight and escapism are exactly what we need to keep going. For nearly three hours, I sat in that theatre, defied gravity, and released the heaviness that had been pulling me down. The movie may not have changed my life, but it reminded me that amidst all the bitter things, there’s still some sweetness to be found.
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I loved Wicked, and I have never seen the stage version. I was transported by the climactic scene and song. Experiencing the arts is more than an escape; it's necessary to nourish our spirits. (Well, romance novels are mostly an escape, but stress reduction is also important. 😉).
Now it's the THING.
Same.
Thank you for this.