Day 5: Finding joy

Last day

This is our last day. As with all the other days, I invite you to be open and curious – read the poem slowly, allowing yourself to be present in your body as you do so. If you have time, there are two writing prompts to try out. If you would like to share, you can use the chat function on Substack, or if you’d rather share privately just drop me a note.

A giraffe

When you feel better from this — and you will — it will be quiet and unremarkable, like walking into the next room. It might sting a little, like warmth leaking into cold-numbed hands. When you feel better, it will be the slow clearing of static from the radio. It will be a film set when the director yells cut! When you feel better, you will take: a plastic spoon for your coffee foam, free chocolates from the gleaming oak reception desk, the bus on sunny days, your own sweet time. When you feel better, it will be like walking barefoot on cool, smooth planks of wood, still damp from last night’s rain. It will be the holy silence when the tap stops dripping. The moment a map finally starts to make sense. When you feel better, you will still suffer, but your sadness will be graspable, roadworthy, have handlebars. When you feel better, you will not always be happy, but when happiness does come, it will be long-legged, sun-dappled: a giraffe.

–– Bryony Littlefair

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Quick prompt

Close your eyes for a moment, and notice what you feel in your body after reading this. Maybe there’s a word or two, a phrase, a mood, that come up. Write them down, even if they make no sense.

If joy were an animal, what would it be?

Without thinking about it at all, start to write about joy as an animal. What kind of animal is it? What does it fur or plumage look like? What sounds does it make? Keep writing for 3 minutes.