Finding Joy

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.” — Jane Austen

This week I dusted off my sequins and my tulle skirt ready for the ballroom. In case you're wondering, I haven’t been out quick-stepping with Anton du Becke in Blackpool, (please forgive me if you don't watch, Strictly, on TV and haven't a clue what I'm on about) but I have been out dancing! Though I confess, in the end I settled for a jeans, trainers and jumper ensemble. An outfit eminently suited to a wet, grey, Monday morning when I joined my twin granddaughters, not quite two years old yet, and their mum, at a weekly appointment with Dinky Dancers - don’t you just love that name!

The little participants, all ten or so of them, were the very definition of dinky, being ‘attractively small and neat.’ How could they not be? I’m not sure a lot of dancing took place, though the mums and nana’s did fine, but there was music and much running amok, a host of sparkly props, smiles all round and an abundance of joy. It is one of the gifts that young children give us - the ability to find wonder and joy in the world around them, in the simple, uncomplicated things.

I loved being a part of it, just as I loved, Krishnan Guru Murthy, in this year’s Strictly. You’ve probably gathered by now that I'm a Strictly fan. I got rather bored with it a while ago, but I’ve been watching it again this year and relishing the pure joy Krishnan found in dancing. His was an improbable odyssey, that I suspect took most of us by surprise, but I was rooting for him all the way. Not the best dancer but the most joyous.

I think of joy as a show off, (in the best possible way) an exuberant emotion that puts itself out there for all to see, but I also believe there are other ways in which we experience joy, ways that are more subdued, quieter perhaps, a whisper compared to a hurrah. Reading brings me this quiet kind of joy every day, as does writing. It's there to be found in the natural world, in the sight of a bullfinch on a winter tree, in small, everyday, creative tasks like baking, in going out to eat pizza with friends...

This week I found joy when I returned for a second time to, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. If you're acquainted with this book, it may surprise you to know that I'm reading it again, or that I can mention it in the same paragraph as joy. I know its reputation as a book that many can't or won't read, due to the difficult subject matter of self harm. I grant this, and also acknowledge that it might be easier for me as I lived alongside serious self-harm in the many years that I worked in prison.

I returned to, A Little Life, because I wanted a book that would consume me, as this one does. I've never felt more engaged or invested in the lives of characters, men as it happens, than I have in the group created here by Yanagihara. Whilst there are undoubtedly horrors and pain, she also finds friendship, joy and love in abundance. In a small way, it’s what I aspire to in my writing. I cannot deny I'm drawn to writing about dark and difficult subjects, but I am always looking for the love, and the hope, to be found there. I'm fortunate that reviews of my last two novels echo this intention:

Sometimes a River Song

Completely stunned by it!  The power of Aiyana’s voice, the exquisite rendering of the river setting and life around it, the characters – it is incredibly engaging, immersive and moving.  And although there are shocking and brutal events… there is beauty and hope in abundance, not to mention love. Isabel Costello, On the Literary Sofa

The Silent Women

Like Pat Barker’s Trojan women in The Silence of the Girls, the inmates of Long Meadow asylum show us how women have struggled to find a voice through the ages but also how light can be found in the most profound darkness. I loved this book and can’t recommend it highly enough.’ Novelist – Ali Bacon

People who don’t read much sometimes say to me, why don’t you write a happy story. I've even had the same said to me in feedback from an editor at a big publishing house. I think they’re missing the point. No life is all happy or joyous, nor can it be. Some lives are unthinkably hard as Jude’s is in, A Little Life, but its doesn't mean there is an absence of love or joy.

Having Joy, a first name, as a surname, means people often call me Joy rather than Avril. I'm also frequently called joybells, joyful or Mrs Jolly. There are those who get upset about their names being misused or misspelt but I don’t, perhaps because I know it’s going to happen a lot, perhaps because I like my surname anyway. I don’t meet many other Avrils and I don’t think I’ve ever met another Joy, who I haven’t been related to. Various internet sites tell me that the name derives from the old French word joie, meaning, joy, and was originally given, as either a baptismal name of endearment, or as a nickname to a joyous or cheerful person. I’m not sure I fit that bill, but someone who did, was my father. Without a doubt, he always maintained the knack of seeing the world through a child’s eye. He was an optimist with a zest for life who loved getting up on the dance floor, and he was famous for dancing the night away, aged 90 at his granddaughter’s wedding.

Dinky dancers would’ve been right up his street.

Thanks for reading - and at the risk of sounding like an old hippie or slipping into religious self-help, mode - I wish you joy, wherever you find it, today and in the coming weeks.

Avril x