Understanding Joy

In a warmer and politically safe part of the world lounged a woman that drank coffee, not with a roman sophistication but as a habitual movement that accounted for breath. Without fail, each day, she awakened by 4 in the morning with nowhere to go. A shuffle to the kettle and a slide of the heavy back door were merely short travels between two places to be. Once the weighted glass pane un-stuck from its seal, crashing waves often revealed a jagged soundscape that had a slight eeriness to match. Misted air joined oxygen only briefly before a tube of relief was inserted towards her mouth. Nudged abreast lined lips, of which had uttered many words across humbled time, a flame flicked. Upon inhale, the shoulders dropped and an arm extended, reaching for caffeine and another day.

Although Joan lived right by the beach there was never a speck of sand to be seen indoors, she was obsessively precise with her vaguely dampened dish towel. Washing floorboards on her hands and knees was an accolade she referred to proudly, but it appeared to me as something to do furiously as though she were being timed. Her fastidious nature tore past cleaning and seemed to spin into a Dantesque torment. Calculated, let’s say, she had an accountants brain.. needless to note, the woman kept records.

Most of these files were stacked in cabinets that had a beige toned lacquer upon them, a sheen that didn’t quite grasp reflection but always caught the light. I remember them being far taller than I was but this was the only place where things were a bit messy, so I felt quite safe and disguised around those weighted oak desks and loosely stacked papers.

All of the items in this room appeared to scale between cream and crimson so when my finger, which traced papers that were not mine, fell upon black, I paused. “Black is not a colour” I was once told, I remembered this as I observed the almost, but not quite, matte texture on this little book I had not seen before. Unable to assert exactly what it was covered with, I was transfixed by its finish until, “Hey!” Joan was suddenly there and I was not safe. “THIS is not for touching, ok?!” Unable to speak, I thought about how annoying it is that adults butcher sentences for children. Although that type of rebuttal would acquire a slap across ones face, so instead I nodded several times and dismissed myself from the business space.

As my small but flat feet waddled upon the tiled hall, they cooled as I replayed that moment in my head. It visited me about half a dozen times into late in the afternoon. I couldn’t help but wonder what connected aunty so protectively to that little black book.

By the time the sun was setting in the West so were Joan’s beady eyes. I hadn’t ceased watching her in my quiet, saddened fury. A child’s grief is silent and driven. I resolved that something in that book meant more to her than me; a conclusion befit to an 11-year-old indeed, I know that now.

Yet at that time, that thought alone was enough to aggravate mischief. The moment she was soundly sleeping with the sea breeze I searched for the book. It wasn’t in an obvious location, perhaps she suspected I’d be a sneak. After some sifting in the kitchen, beneath the drawer where she keeps her cigarettes, I carefully plucked the book, weary of placement for its soon return.

Unfurling the pages towards its spine, a thread jutted out at the side, something was bookmarked. It was a journal entry dated 19th January 1989.. the writing was hers but the tone was unrecognisable..

“the meadow in my spirit barrels to ends I am yet to see,

as my legs run alongside yours I am captured in this light.

The grass to our knees is the safety we seek,

freedom with the touch of a gentle wind.

We arose with soil long ago,

two souls tied to roots we cannot control.”

Pages of words and snippets of all sorts of things were affixed with glue and tape; a Polaroid of a house, a pressed flower and the wrapping of a small sweet — I felt there were too many stimuli at hand for my snooping haste.

Concentrate, I told myself as I sat by the drawer, crouched very low.

Focusing closer into a portrait, I could see she was with a man but.. she was not named Joan in the note beneath, but instead “Joy”. He could be described as radiant; the type that looked spontaneous yet ripe with respect. I wondered how a picture could cast such a melange of personality.

I soon realised that time was getting on, I had been caught up in the story of another life that was clearly my Aunty’s, some decades ago. The coolness of night was falling like an alarm for her slumber. I made haste and stowed the book back until I could redeem it after dinner.

At the table she was exhausted, I examined how the weight of a fork hosting peas wasn’t heavy as such, but an obvious feat to reach her mouth. She had no hunger. Her movements were slow, sometimes static with only eyes blinking and subtle sighs leaving. Who is she, I wondered. For the first time, I did not fill the void of silence with nervous chatter, I only gave energy to thought and observation, hoping her restorative state would maintain. Joan did not resist the quiet, she went willingly without suspicion.

Back with the well-preserved journal, there I was, attentive with the amber light of a side table lamp. Positioned perfectly in repose so that I might fox if caught, the illuminated pages seemed to speak beneath the weighted covers of bed.

The pages fells like stardust, delicate and real whilst seemingly fictional — so distant from anything I knew. Like unveiling a treasure chest, I was tied to this narrative that explained mysteries I had never questioned; one being the unending money she had acquired for a lifestyle she supports without noticeably working. A letter, neatly folded into four, unhinged from a page declaring:

“for the loss of Henry Stacks and subsequent circumstances including 
i) need for personal security and,
ii) financial compensation, the department has considered $3.6M befit for remuneration considering the following requirements…”

it went on to explain a myriad of details including the changing of her identity. I knew enough now. I closed my eyes and held this treasure for one moment more, before returning it quietly into the void of her honest drawer.

Twenty years since this finding, here I am, accounting for what I saw on that mysterious evening. I suppose secrets aren’t truly secrets once recorded by pen and paper. They have their place in the tangible, almost seeking to be found and accepted. Because of this, I had glimpsed a window into Joan’s life that could not be unseen. I met Joy.

Now, when captured in the memory of her, I imagine the morning sun warming her ageing skin, rituals in either hand. I can make sense of who she was, the yearn for a deeper breath and a distraction. Joan was the reflection of something she had lost. No longer herself, perforated with sadness. I’m pleased I found that little black book, after all, it cast a softness towards a woman whom I had not been invited to know.