Summer hit our household with a few viruses, a hospital stay, and some serious attention to essentials. Sometimes, the seasons outside do not line up well with the seasons of our lives. So it goes. I’m mostly staying home. Resting a lot. Paying attention to some big spiritual winds. Yet, I’m finding myself delighted and filled with a strange vicarious joy.

I am more used to chasing my own joy. I plan something and we make it happen and it has all the anticipated joy and the chaotic joy of whatever happens. We make a summer fun list and check things off. But this year, I haven’t even made it out for a bike ride. I bought and set up a badminton net in the yard to play with the kids, and I have only managed one game. Mindful of the many people who live with chronic pain and illness all the time, I am not used to not having enough energy to make fun happen.

And so, from my resting place, I am discovering vicarious joy. I drive by yards full of flowers and I pull over and look for awhile. I can’t tend a yard like that on my best day. But it feels amazing to delight in the care and attention of the strangers who have done all that beautiful work. Here I am, sitting on my front porch listening to the sounds of kids playing outside down the street or from the park. The laughter is making me giggle out loud. 

I am lying in my bed, listening to the sounds of my family cleaning up dinner. Telling stories, reminding the littles to shut the door – again! They are enjoying each other, and while I miss them, I am also so lucky to lie here smiling and not only witness their joy but also feel it deeply. 

Tempted to wallow in self-pity and disappointment (which I am also feeling lots of), it is good to practice more of the thing that seems to have found me accidentally. Vicarious joy is looking at the photos of other people’s vacations and discovering that I am feeling the cool of the water in the photo. Hearing the voices that must have come before one more picture pose!

I have been able to go along on some day trips and be honest about what I cannot do and discover the joy of letting it be what it is. My kids are getting bigger and I am watching them discover how much they can do when I cannot. It is messy and it is good. At the end of the evenings, I am sinking into a bath and noticing the way I am held by the water and the house. I wander onto the lawn and marvel at the way that the earth holds me up. The way she nurtures the seeds we and others planted. How many miracles do I miss when I can move faster?

Maybe this vicarious joy is also a product of aging. I went out and picked a small palmful of raspberries off our baby shoots-becoming-bushes. It was a flashback to my grandma’s alley at her house in town. I was maybe 9, and I brought in a handful and offered her some. She told me to eat them and so I did, happily. I don’t think I have ever noticed the look on her face in my memory until I stared at the berries off my own tree. It was like she grew them just so I would be delighted with them. I walked them into the kitchen and held them out to my daughter and nieces. And I soaked up all their joy. 

Watching some friends perform on a stage a few weeks ago, I was moved by the their performance, but more joy surged as I watched them enjoy making the music. In a world where there is suffering and division and indifference, it is worth being a person bearing witness to joy. To delight in and celebrate the good things that happen to and in other people. To be profoundly moved by the vicarious joy that flows over with abundance – if I will take the time to notice and receive.