Dear Patient, Last week’s Note Joyful prompted a response from a reader about a recent revelation she’d had: that there is fast joy and slow joy. She wrote: Fast joy is finding the first daffodil poking up in the early spring. The sunlight through the yellow maple leaves behind our house. The surprising little things that catch our breath and elicit a smile. But there is also a kind of joy that lives with us over time, growing and changing us…constant, deep and…well…slow. A different kind of joy but certainly in the same category of unexpected delight that is a daffodil shoot.
Nice distinction. I can see how slow joy could be the source of fast joy, too.