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This is a picture AD snapped of Sean and me one Sunday after church recently. I fussed with it in Photoshop (diffused glow I think) and ended up with this sort of aged and dreamy effect which I like.

It seems to capture the feeling I have of this season in my life where time is no longer pedestrian and linear but rather bounds like a gazelle, zigzagging from day to week to month and so quickly, my eyes can’t follow.  Hasn’t every parent looked at their child and asked themselves, “How did this happen?  Where did the time go?”

The cartoonist Jerry Van Amerongen who draws Ballard Street once said, “I feel like a little bird with a big song.”  When I look at this picture, that’s exactly how I feel.

Being that boys’ mom has put a mighty big song in my heart.

Nette, one of my treasured long-time readers,  left the following comment on my post yesterday:

How did you get from “‘whatever’, let’s just get this mess cleaned up because I’m tired and I still need to make dinner and I don’t have anything thawed out”, to “let me bask in this moment of my child finding art in an accident (which is the best kind) and grab my camera and take a shot or two or three so I can write about my thoughts about this”.

The truth is Nette, I plan for joy. I expect it in my day, I seek it and I try to capture it. And in order to do that I have to facilitate it a little bit. To be clear, I do not try to manufacture joy but I do try to open my eyes to seeing it for the gift that it is  and to be ready to sneak up on it when it occurs.  I often fail as we all do.  Sometimes it seems more important to get the meatloaf in the oven than to stop and look at ribbon on the floor or the cardinal in the snow.

One of ways I facilitate joy in my life is that I always have one of my cameras at hand. I pick it up off my desk in the kitchen and capture moments off and on throughout the day. The body of the camera is a mess because sometimes I barely get the hamburger I’m mixing into dinner off my hands before I snap a picture.  Hamburger will wipe off. The moment won’t come again.  I have files of pictures of things like ribbon on the floor that would make no sense to anyone else, but hidden in those images is the joy of an ordinary moment in my life, the life I had at the very minute the shutter blinked.

I always have paper and pen at hand. I write down little incomplete thoughts in just enough words that I might be able to ruminate upon the moment later and complete the painting with words that make sense outside of my own head.

I keep a little voice recorder in my car.  When it’s just Sean and me in the car and I sense it’s a “talking time” I surreptitiously turn it on and let it go. Just the other day I came across one of the car conversations from when he was three and it melted my heart to hear that sweet baby voice again, it reconstituted the joy of that forgotten moment.

And here’s the thing about joy – sometimes the joy is not apparent exactly in the moment, but comes later — after you’ve had time to take a deep breath, reflect upon it and bring perspective to it.  But it is joy all the same and those photos and little word pictures help to keep it from vanishing like a mist.

Here’s a post I wrote a year or so ago about capturing joy.

Thanks for the great comment Nette!

During  a recent gift wrapping fest, Sean noticed this scrap of  ribbon that had fallen to the floor.

“Mom! Look!” he shouted like Columbus discovering the Americas.

“It’s a baby! This ribbon looks like a baby!”

And so it does.

I see trash on the floor.

He sees art.

Together, we stood over the ribbon and marveled at its simple beauty.   We decided that we would take a picture of it so we could keep it forever.

As I looked at the scrap of ribbon through the lens of my camera, I thought of how an ordinary piece of ribbon destined for the trash had, through the eyes of a child, become a work of art. That is the alchemy of joy, where something of no value is transmuted into something of great value.

I thought about how most often the joys in life are simple and unexpected and lying at our feet. And how as we get older and jaded, we forget how to spot them.

I am glad I have a five-year-old to help point them out.

Late last year, I was asked if I would be willing to speak to a group of ladies and if so, what would I talk about?

I said, yes, and I have no idea.

So then. I panicked.

And then I called my friend Lysa Terkeurst (subliminalmessagebuyLysasbooks) who is by far the most dynamic and powerful speaker I’ve ever heard and I prevailed upon her for wisdom. She gave me some great advice about planning a speech and crafting a message.  She also helped me see that the essence of what I write about here is capturing the joy of motherhood. And together we decided that would be a great topic for a speech. Or a book.

So then, later this month, I will be speaking to a group of ladies about capturing the joy of motherhood.

As luck would have it, life is not oozing joy at the moment.  Life is peaks and valleys my friends, we all know that, and right now I’m just sort of hanging out at the bottom of the mountain waiting for the ski lift to take me back up to the top.  It’s fine.  There’s a snack bar down here and lots of nice people.

So the other day as I was trying to put together some thoughts on the joy of motherhood that I could talk about,  I was interrupted 87 times by my child who seems to have a knack for knowing when I need a moment of peace or need to get something done.

Mom, MOM, mommmm, hey mom, Ma-ahmm, hey mom look at this, mom do you know where, mom have you seen my, mom what if, hey mom, mom will you pour me some, hey mom come see…

At which point, I shouted not joyfully “DO NOT CALL MY NAME ONE MORE TIME! DO! NOT!”

Now one of the many things I like about God is how he uses my own short comings to teach me stuff I need to know.  I imagine sometimes that he is sitting up there in heaven with some of those apostle guys saying something like, “Hey Pete, Jimbo! Dudes, come watch this.  You’re gonna like this. Yeah, Antique Mommy again.”

After I heard the sound of my own voice screeching at my child I was struck by the irony that I was trying to write a speech on the joy of motherhood.  And I had to stop and ask myself what is joy exactly, separate and apart from motherhood? And what business do I have telling others about it?

After much prayer, research and introspection, I came to the conclusion that joy is not happiness.  It is not glee or exhilaration or giddiness – those things reside on the surface and they come and go with the wind that blows and swirls this way and that at the top of the mountain.

For me, joy is deep and abiding and resides somewhere up under the sternum.  Joy is as ever present in the valleys as it is on the peaks. It is satisfying and it is fulfilling and it is not fleeting. It’s the certain knowledge that this place in time, this right now — this is good! And that each day of life, each moment,  is a precious and beautiful gift – even when it’s not oozing joy.

Being Sean’s mom is a tremendous source of joy in my life, even when he’s driving me crazy.

That is the joy of motherhood.

This is a picture of Cousin Tim, the world’s oldest four-year-old. The fact that he qualifies for AARP membership does not stop him from enjoying a homemade Slip N’ Slide. I really like that about him — that and the fact that he’s the original mangy varmint thug.

Tune in tomorrow for a guest post from Cousin Tim.