Spring’s Stunning Sparkle
Like spring bursting onto the scene after a long winter, it’s uncanny how, in the midst of darkness, your eye will catch a glimmer of light. There it is, a sparkle in the corner, where you never look, where you certainly wouldn’t expect to find anything…much less a gift.
I’ve written before about how my debut novel, Recipe for Joy, was born from grief, but also from an enormous amount of love. Life holds such extremes for us all, just as winter and spring are conjoined by the thinnest of threads…which is how a journey rooted in profound sorrow can blossom joy.
The Gift of the Season
Spring is the season of renewal and rebirth. So, it feels fitting and abundantly gratifying that Recipe for Joy will make her way into the world on March 24th, because renewal is a leitmotif of the novel. Revitalizing one’s life, growth (whether it be in the garden, or personal growth), turning toward the sunlight, embracing the happy, all of this resonates this time of year. Recipe for Joy touches on all these themes, so life and art set to comingle in spring’s earliest days feels poetic. A little too on the nose? Perhaps. But honestly, what a thing! I’m leaning into the poetry of it all.
Happily, joy has pressed her handprint upon me of late. My book coming out has unleashed no shortage of emotions—anxiety, gratitude, excitement, did I mention anxiety?!—but mostly happiness that this story will be shared with everyone. This story that took root when I was grief-stricken, this story that wouldn’t let go, this story that I breathed life into, that became a love letter to a time and a place…it’s deeply meaningful to me.
And what an honor it is to be able to share it with others. The novel is illustrative of the gifts that appear when you least expect it. When no way, no how would you ever expect to be given something that would turn into such a present. This is what the past five years have been. A journey. A profoundly beautiful, gutting journey…also, a gift.
The Sparkle You Carry
When you experience profound sorrow…it doesn’t disappear. But you learn to carry it. I carry loss better now. It’ll always be with me in the way that you undoubtedly carry the loss of a loved one. Grief is intensely personal, but at the same time the contours are known to us all. But to cradle grief and walk along with it, to know that it’s part of you and if the loss has wrecked you to your core…well, that means you loved completely.
Oddly, that precious gift of love keeps on giving in memory, in tenderness, in reflection. Although we all know carrying loss isn’t always easy, nor is the journey ever linear…it always holds a shimmer (even if you have to squint to see it).
So, here’s to a season of gifts. To warmth, to sunshine, to new beginnings. May spring’s delights sparkle and shine for us all as we carry our echoes of loss in the sunlight. May we lean into whatever memory might crest this time of year, whatever tenderness grips us, and may we see the shimmer for what it is, love. More than anything, here’s hoping we can find the joy and lean into it.
Because if there’s one thing that’s true right now, we could all use a little more joy.