God delivered me joy in a box

The box was a human

And I had to give it back

But by then

I had everything I needed

To contain

My own happiness again

I tucked it in a pocket

Located beneath my skin

Like an otter with a stone

Sometimes now I’m home

I take it out again

And smile

*We encounter some people and they simply light us up again.
I have a dear friend who does this for me—we sit for hours talking and laughing until the air itself seems lighter. Those visits reset something essential.

On my recent trip away—perhaps because it stretched over time, through unfamiliar places and tough, shifting conditions—I met someone else who made me laugh. Not a polite laugh, but the kind that escapes in snorts and tears. The kind that bubbles up from somewhere deeper than reason.

When the body laughs often enough, when the face forgets to frown, it becomes a new way of being. I’d entered the trip serious and guarded, weighed down by all that was happening back home. But joy—pure, ridiculous, unfiltered joy—opened a wellspring inside me that I hadn’t realised had gone dry.

I hope you have someone in your life like that. Even if for a time. Now that we have all disbanded and gone our separate ways, I doubt I’ll ever see my joyful friend again but that is not the purpose of people such as these. Some passing relationships are perhaps intended to open a door we didn’t know we contained, or remind us of who we are at heart. People can be angels walking sometimes and anyone who has ever tried to hold an angel knows they are not of this realm, but we might encounter them again, down the track when all this mess we must go through, is sorted out. And we have become someone light enough to fly too.

*Header photo of the cattle coming in for a drink in the late afternoon sunlight.