Pointless Joy! Returning to the Heart in our Art

 

For my birthday, my friend gave me a notecard covered with images in fine-tip marker. "Gorgeous!" I cried. This made my brain happy! She waved it away. "It just doodles. I do it for stress relief." But these "doodles" brought me joy! Even if they were "just for fun." 

Then, she gave me markers. Soon, I added colored pencils. Usually, every spare minute goes to working on picture books. But now, sometimes, I doodle. Not for that race to finish, to keep striving, to try to please those who would decide whether my work was good enough, but for joy. 

Winter is a particulary hard season for my chronic illness symptoms, physically and emotionally. I'm often too foggy to do thinking work for a stretch. This winter, the tragedies in the world felt overhwelming. I'd left my agent and nothing had progressed professionally for so, so long. But as I colored, out spilled strange, organic images. The colors felt like my soul breathing. Sometimes, I started to dislike my choices. No, I told myself gently, this is for joy.

Something about creating without any tie to the marketplace felt like a relief, like it was healing something deep. It reminded me of the lowest point in my illness in 2020-2022, when day after day, I lay in bed unable to work, to create anything meaningful, to even message loved ones. The loss of normal life, of connection were so deep. My first book, The Amazing Idea of You (illus. by Mary Lundquist) had launched just days after my health collapsed. Shortly after, we had moved to Italy. It should have been a dream. Was this my life? I remember despairing. "What am I for?" My whole life I had taught, written, helped, done "things" to contribute. Now I was just here. I couldn't help. My wife did all the work. But over and over she told me that I was everything to her even if I couldn't "do" anything. 

What buoyed me in those long days was the art on the walls. It became sacred places to visit, to dream, to feel. Music that transported me out of my window (The Flower Duet). I floated with the arias of the Italian birds. I kept breathing. Being.

I had to root out the capitalist idea that my worth depends on what I produce, on whether my work is validated by publication and sales. On whether I meet some imagined standard and timeline. On how I compare to others. Capitalsim is an inhuman way to be and think. Capitalism devalues the most important things we have lived, felt, and expressed in our art. I needed to learn that what we are "for" is life. Connection. We are "for" joy.

(A framed doodle I created after a hard season of writing articles related to Mahmoud v. Taylor, also a bowl of handmade tissue paper flowers -- both for joy.)

This is Pride month, a time of celebrating being here when not everyone wants that. This moment is so fraught for the 2LGBTQIA+ community. I'll be writing later this month about what it has been like to have my picture book Love, Violet caught up in a U.S. Supreme Court case (Mahmoud v. Taylor) along with other 2LGBTQIA+ picture books. The more I've processed this experience and the hate messages, the more I recognize that just being is radical. Joy, even in choas and grief, is affirmation of life! The moments I've belly laughed with the authors and illustrators named in this court case have healed and liberated me. They've taken away the power of hate speech. Joy reminds me of what is true, that what matters is us. Living.

We are here. We are now. The fact that we are struggling, trying, loving, hurting, pausing to notice the beads of dew on the new irses, still breathing, is a miracle. We don't have to earn our right to exist. When we allow ourselves to be, without judgment or guilt, when we create just for joy, we honor life and our place in it. We were made to be.

Yes, we make books for the marketplace, to connect with children. 

Sometimes art needs to be free. 

As I wrote for Cynsations, in its purest form, art is "A place we gather/ to share the journey/ our pounding hearts," whether that art is published or praised or fast enough or not. "Art is the most vulnerable thing we do. Except for love." 

So, my friends, I wish you "pointless" joy today. Maybe an exhale of thanks before sleep. A scribbled note about something joyful. A doodle. A dance in the kitchen. A song for your dog. A joke after a hard conversation. Really, joy isn't pointless.

Joy is the point.

(The Joy Jar we started filling in January with "joys" we've noticed. We are completely inconsistent about when we do this. But the colored paper adding up, month by month, makes me happy!) 

 

Charlotte Sullivan Wild is the author of several picture books. Love, Violet (illus. Charlene Chua) is a Stonewall Book Award winner, Charlotte Huck Honor Book, and Lambda Literary Award Finalist. The Amazing Idea of You (illus. Mary Lundquist) is a lyrical celebration of the potential in living things, especially in every child. She has taught language arts, literature and writing, worked as a bookseller, and volunteered as the SCBWI RA for Southwest Texas. She is represented by Analía Cabello at Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Learn more: www.CharlotteSWild.com