by Claire Weber (she/her), ’24-25
When I think of joy, my mind immediately goes to Ross Gay’s quote from The Book of Delights that asks,
“Is this, sorrow, of which our impending being no more might be the foundation, the great wilderness? Is sorrow the true wild? And if it is — and if we join them — your wild to mine — what’s that? For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying. I’m saying: What if that is joy?”
That combination of our sorrows and our struggles into joy reminds me that joy pushes us beyond surface-level happiness. Joy is there because of and in the face of our sorrows. Here in Sitka, joy beckons us outside on rainy, dark days; joy pulls us to the dinner table as a community on good and bad days. Joy pushes us past our comfort levels, whether it’s long runs as a group or taking on new and different things at our service sites. In the struggles of a service year, returning repeatedly to joy keeps us motivated. I feel joy reaching its hand out to me, urging me to hang on tight. We may not know what’s next, but we know that we can let it be joyful.
I witness this over and over again at Girls on the Run, the program that I facilitate and coach at my service site. We ask the 3rd-5th graders in the program to take on challenges outside of their comfort zone, whether it’s running laps with teammates you don’t know as well or pushing yourself a little bit past what you think you can run. A few weeks ago, we ran a practice 5K. Girls were initially shocked at how many laps are in a 5K. Bad weather meant we did this in the small gym, but they took it in stride, celebrating one another and themselves. The joy in the gym was tangible.
The joyfulness felt in the practice 5K from kids getting stickers every five laps or high fiving teammates during water breaks made it possible for the kids to work towards a larger goal. As I reflect on our larger goals as a JVC Northwest community, I believe that small moments of joy are the building blocks of this movement of solidarity and love. We are propelled forward in a year of service by joy – like the third-fifth graders, these are not paths we walk alone. We can find joy in the small and large moments around us like sunny days in in often-rainy Alaska or shared meals with the FJVs here.
As we prepare for Christmas in this season of Advent – this season of joyful expectation – I hope that we, too, can find joy in ordinary moments especially with one another. Reflecting on the joys that I have within my community here in Sitka (shoutout to the Sitka Sisters) gives me a hopeful lens toward the communities around us. At our dinner table in the Sitka Seahouse, we are all joyfully met with love and unconditional appreciation for one another. May the joys that we find in sharing salmon chowder or ice cream propel us into ensuring that everyone around us has the privilege to experience these.
I hope that in this time of Advent and in the New Year around the corner, we can all find ways to extend our experiences with joy to the communities around us, building solidarity and support for our neighbors one joyful moment at a time.
Claire Weber is serving in Sitka, AK as the After-School Prevention Specialist with Sitkans Against Family Violence (SAFV). She is originally from Dallas, TX and attended The University of Chicago. She is pictured above with her JV community.
