I realized yesterday how sad I’ve been that my dogwood tree didn’t bloom this year. For most of the month of May, at least twice a day but sometimes more, I looked at this tree and felt disappointed, cheated even. I didn’t get something I expected and wanted and looked forward to. It was destabilizing, it was unfair.
You see, every year in mid May, weeks after all the other flowering trees on the block have bloomed, my tree has this late, somewhat outrageous show of the most perfect flowers. Flowers that stop strangers in their tracks, perhaps because of how low they hang over the sidewalk, right in your face. They pause, double back, take photos, smile.
I discussed it with my Mom, quite knowledgeable about gardens and landscaping and responsible for planting — by herself — the magnolia tree tucked behind this dogwood. I discussed it with Kendal, the wonderful gardener I met at my kettlebell gym, who employs only women, and makes decisions for me, for my garden, that make us both feel cared for. Of course, I discussed it with Claud-ia, the term for Claude I’ve adopted from Molly which is both comforting (because now, “it” is feminine) and retro, because the first Claudia in my life was from The Babysitter’s Club.
Claud-ia says there is a scientific answer, a good reason why my dogwood tree didn’t bloom this year. Don’t worry. She (the tree) is not in danger. The women who tend to my garden, myself included, did not do anything wrong. But knowing the answer and being assured of her (the tree’s) safety didn’t make me feel less sad about the missing flowers.
Yesterday, as I was biking around Downtown Brooklyn like a kid, making slow circles in a plaza while talking on the phone, as if I had nowhere to be anytime soon, I told a friend that I always have 3 businesses going. I’d never described myself that way. Is it true? In some sense, yes. In others, no. But if I were to tape the first dollar I ever earned on the wall, like they do at my bodega, it would have been from The Babysitters Club.
In 4th grade I was moved to a new school. I think I was acting out, causing trouble at my first school, a small parochial school on a sunny street in Santa Monica that taught us to sing in French and make chocolate peanut butter eggs at Easter. There were warnings that I might be moved to the big, scary public school if my behavior didn’t improve. But when it finally happened it felt abrupt and consequential, because it was.
I was placed in an experimental class that blended 4th, 5th and 6th graders. My family friend Timmy was there, in the room, a 5th grader but in the row right next to me. Everything else was new and weird. The days were long and boring. The playground was a sea of concrete and chain-link fences and kids I didn’t know.
Pretty soon after joining the class I did what I always do: test the teacher. I needed to see if she was worthy of my obedience, or, if I could be in charge. In the back of the classroom, I setup my first business: The Babysitters Club Blockbuster Warehouse. I brought in my collection of books, I displayed them, wrote blurbs on folded index cards. I set prices and made deals. The prices were dynamic based on my mood and how much I liked the customer or didn’t. After only a few days in business, I remember hearing kids during recess who weren’t in my class talk about the shop in Mrs. Owens’ class and feeling proud.
The existence of this marketplace brought joy to my days in that classroom. All of a sudden, there was a secondary subterranean storyline. Looks from kids who wanted to make a deal. Girls who wanted to be my friend. Partnership offers from 6th graders who thought I should expand to include a Sweet Valley High section. Glances from boys who probably found my operation confounding, or annoying.
The real thrill was feeling as if I’d gotten one over on Mrs. Owens, which I hadn’t. She saw it all. And to her credit, she didn’t shut down my store, or chastise me for having the audacity to setup a store in the first place. I think she quietly said the store could only open at recess. I think, but I’m not sure, she gave me a heavy cloth to cover the display during instruction. It was that simple. She let me have the store. She set the hours.
I learned in a podcast yesterday that joy is different from happiness. Happiness is something you can work toward, in an Aristotelian way. Have morals, live a virtuous life, increase your odds of attaining happiness. Joy is mysterious, surprising, unplanned, not something you can optimize for, but, according to the woman on the podcast who wrote the book on joy, something you can open yourself up to, and something that can appear even in tough times. On dark days.
I decided to see if she was right, to try it on. Right there, right then I had the perfect backdrop for my experiment: a heavy, serious day of obligation and background anxiety. I didn’t know how to “open myself up to joy” nor did I really want to be associated with that concept so I just tried to be more present, in the moment instead of thinking about the moment that just happened, the thing I was supposed to do next.
And, of course, there it was. Three times in less than one day. First, I was folded over laughing while walking to the train because of my friend Brad, and Siri’s mistake, and his outrage at her mistake, and the absurdity of Deadmau5.
Then, a message from my brother, uncannily asking me if I knew that joy meant luck, followed by a conversation about joy.
And, finally, this morning, after weeks of being sad about her sea of green leaves, I opened my bedroom shutters and saw one flower at the top of my not-blooming this year dogwood. Against all scientific odds she made a flower. Was it there all the time and my disappointment in her masked it? Or did it appear because I was ready for joy?
