Roads to Joy

On Friday, two days ago, at the end of the new-to-us garden, an incredible peony blossom opened. Earlier in the day we’d listened to a wonderful, beautiful song by Michael Marra, Happed in Mist, presented on BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast by Petroc Trelawney, which elicited a quick response of tears.

The conflation of these beautiful effulgences, these shining examples of wonder, may have something more to do with their beholder, their listener, than is immediately apparent. The fact of peony blossom, here in a garden we scarcely feel we have any right to occupy, touches our hearts, conveys to us a sense of exalted music. The story related by Michael Marra’s song so moves me, especially because I’m still working on my novel, Keep Me in Your Heart, about a deserter from the trenches in WWI, and the tale that dare not be revealed, that must always be an histoire perdu.

So there are conflicting emotions that are evoked by both of these experiences, and somehow that internal conflict elicits tear drops. To call this merely joy is to miss the point. It’s joy, Jim, but not as we know it, as Mr Spock never quite said to Captain Kirk. No, the joy is revealed as a precious, evanescent moment, so fragile, so delicate, so buffeted about by forces beyond our control, and still so exalted.

Our job, it seems, is to continue to persevere, senses open to receive these precious moments, to notice them.