Reclaiming Joy
Discover more from trains-and-planes-and-bikes-and-buses of thought
As a kid in Primary 1, I remember one of my school supplies was a cheap palette of watercolor paints and a single plastic paintbrush.
Up till that point, I had no real concept of art. Sure, we did coloring and drew pictures of our families as scraggly stick figures with oversized eyes and creepy grins but that was the extent of it that I recall.
So I was excited about Art being one of the classes in my weekly schedule in “real school”.
I don’t even remember the first Art class we had or what we were tasked to do.
I only remember that I had followed the instructions to the best of my abilities (my eager-to-please tendencies started young) and used my watercolors as well as I knew (not very) to create something soggy, streaky, and probably objectively not beautiful at all.
What I do remember was feeling pleased about smushing the little watercolor cakes with my paintbrush gripped too tighter in my little hand and watching them turn into little melty puddles of color.
What I do remember was feeling a little thrill as the colors swirled together on my too-wet drawing block and watching red bleed into blue into purple, blue bleed into yellow into green, everything — bleed into brown.
What I do remember is the sinking feeling (fear? anxiety? hurt?) in the pit of my stomach as I received back my artwork the next lesson and turned it over to see a nonchalant “B” scrawled in red ink next to my name.
That was the first of many Bs (and some Cs) I would earn in Art class.
I didn’t know the sun was meant to be drawn in the top right corner of the sheet of paper, always, without fail — a neat quarter circle with regularly spaced alternating long and short lines to represent rays, and if you were feeling fancy, wearing sunglasses too.
I didn’t know pressing harder on the color pencils made a darker shade, nor that slanting your color pencil at a certain angle produced a soft shadow.
I didn’t know a lot of things (anything?) about Art — but I knew I wasn’t good at it.
It didn’t matter that the melty puddles of watercolor paint were mesmerizing to me. It didn’t matter that I could spend hours watching water drip-drip-drip off the tip of my paintbrush onto paper. It didn’t matter that I created something where nothing existed before.
As a child of 6, the Bs and Cs on the back of every single piece of artwork I turned in told me that whatever I did wasn’t good (enough).
The adults in my life reinforced that -
“Ohh, yeah, you have to keep the colors inside the lines.”
“It’s okay, next time you can do something better.”
“Never mind, it’s just art.”
And as a child of 6, I understood that Art was not about the process, but the result. I was told that Art was not something I would be good at. I learned that Art was not for me, and something I couldn’t enjoy creating.
You see, I was brought up to believe that you should be good at everything you do — and if you’re not, you shouldn’t do it at all.
Art became one of those things.
And even though Art remained on my weekly schedule for the years to come, I never quite regained that pleasure, that thrill, that joy of creating something from nothing.
Recently, I came across the account of Andrea Nelson on Instagram.
She was doing something simple, squiggles across a page and blobby shapes with watercolors. But what stood out to me was watching her work, and I remember she kept saying “It’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.”
And something about watching her videos and hearing her say “It’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.” over and over and over again in every single one of her videos I watched made me start to believe that I could put a cheap paintbrush (or pen or pencil or marker) to paper and it would be fine.
It was fine.
I bought myself a cheap set of watercolor paints, reminiscent of the one I had almost 30 years ago and drawing block too.
And I followed her videos step by step.
And it was fine.
It was more than fine.
It was wonderful. It was liberating. It was joyous.
When I finished my first piece, I stared at it in wonder for a long time.
It was hard for me to believe that I — of the Bs and Cs in Art class, after years of being told that “you’re just not good at Art”, after years of denying myself the opportunity to create because I believed that I could only take pleasure in something I was good at — had created something that I found beautiful.
I may have even become a little misty-eyed as I put it up the the entrance of my home - I had created something I thought was beautiful and I was proud of it. And more than that, I had reclaimed the joy that little me had experienced.
How often do we deny ourselves joy because we think of 1,403 reasons why we shouldn’t/can’t/won’t enjoy something?
Regardless of why we do it — childhood experiences, the messages we receive from society, the pressures of the people around us — what if we simply became more aware that we are denying ourselves joy?
And then, what if, instead of saying no, we said yes?
A few months ago, my friend invited me to make a collage with her.
Y’know, cutting out bits of old magazines and sticking them together to create something new.
I hadn’t done something like that since (surprise, surprise) Art class in Primary or Secondary School and (surprise, surprise) reccieved a B or a C for it.
I hesitated.
My first instinct was to say — oh, no, I won’t enjoy it, oh, no, it’s not for me, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, no, no.
But then I thought — but, why not?
And I said Yes.
I admit, it was uncomfortable trying to let go of my internalized resistance, of the voices in my head saying “it’s gonna be bad, it’s gonna be ugly”, of the stress of trying to make something perfect.
At some point in our 3hr long session, I realized it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be anything. I could enjoy the process and stop worrying about the outcome.
And I relaxed a little. I focused on enjoying the company of my friend. I looked with different eyes through the magazines.
And my collage came together.
Maybe it wasn’t the most joyous activity (I honestly felt quite stressed out) but that wasn’t the point.
The point is that I even allowed myself the opportunity to possibly enjoy something I hadn’t done for so long.
To possibly discover joy where I had been told (and told myself) there was only lack, and failure, and grief.
And in the possibility, lay everything.
We move through our lives carrying with us all the messages we’ve received and absorbed since we were little.
You’re good at this. You’re bad at that. You can be better at this. You shouldn’t bother with the other thing.
And so on.
We also carry with us the weight of the expectations that everyone else places on us — and through them, we develop our own expectations of ourselves to place on our own shoulders (as if the weight we already bear isn’t enough).
You should do this. You can’t do that. You won’t be able to do this other thing. You definitely shouldn’t be that way.
And so on.
With all of this and that and the other, what often happens is we start denying ourselves the little things that bring us joy.
Maybe it was something small, like playing with watercolors. Or maybe it was something big, like your passion for planes.
Whatever it was, it adds up. And with each additional message, and opinion, and expectation we carry with us we take away yet another sliver of joy we have in our lives.
Playing with watercolors. Making a collage. Dancing in the rain. Eating cake. Singing.
And so on.
What if we took them all back?
What if we reclaim these activities - this joy - that has been denied us?
What would we look like? What would the world look like? Who would we be?
In a world that values us in terms of dollars and cents, reclaiming joy is a radical act.
Choosing to be joyous in a world that demands your labor for your survival is a rebellious act.
Prioritizing yourself, your humanness, your joy in a world that makes you sell your soul to feed your body is a quiet sort of revolution.
If more of us reclaimed - choose - prioritized - our joy, imagine what we could create.
Imagine a softer world with more joy.
Imagine a wilder world with more tenderness.
Imagine a world where being human had some meaning.
I’m dreaming of it already.
Come join me.
There’s joy to be had over here.
If my work/thoughts/ideas/dreams/hopes in this space resonate with you, let’s find ways to collaborate. Set up a time for us to connect further here: Chat with Crunch
Reclaiming Joy
Thank you for writing and sharing this! I recently started painting with watercolors on small square canvases purely for the sake of creative expression and joy. I am enjoying it so much and looking forward to getting more colors and bigger canvases!