• Happiness,  Mary Oliver,  Poetry

    Unexpected joy

    “Joy is not made to be a crumb.” ~Mary Oliver Suddenly, everyone’s talking about “joy” — a word that’s typically reserved for holiday greeting cards. When was the last time you felt joy? Joy is unbridled optimism and unabashed positivity, which can be hard to feel if you’re mired in the habit of negative thinking. Dark energy, after all, is both pervasive and contagious. So, who doesn’t want to experience joy for a change? Mary Oliver’s poetry always resonates. And when a dear friend shared “Don’t Hesitate” in an email last week, the word “joy” jumped off the screen and lifted me from the funk I was in. It was…