Periphery Joy

With September in full swing, my family put up our fall stuff recently.

Every time a new season comes around, I say it’s my favorite, but there truly is something magical about fall. And I love when the inside of our house transforms with the coziness of fall colors.

I have a few pumpkin decorations with candle openings, but since having kids, I’ve chosen to forgo the candles in them for the past few years, as my oldest loves to explore and loses most sense of hearing when exploring is underway.

But this year, as I set it up and looked around, I thought maybe I could get some electric tea candles and give it a go.

To say I felt joy when I saw these pumpkins come aglow is an understatement.

I was ecstatic, in awe, joyful, and overcome with love and gratitude.

I know, it’s just a pumpkin decoration. But making our little home and creating a cozy place where so many things happen—good, hard, mundane, exciting—is something I strive to do. And in that moment, it all felt so wonderfully aligned.

But the best part?

My boys joined in with me.

I don’t think they understood a lick of what I was excited about. It's really just a glass orange pumpkin with cut slits that the light shines through. And another glitter pumpkin, my nana’s, that carries a soft glow up the slits. But they kept looking at the pumpkins, then looked back at me—and a smile just as wide as mine spread across their face, and they started clapping their hands, too, as they looked back and forth between the pumpkins, all aglow.

Coziness, in every aspect of the word I hope our house holds, was there in those moments.

I don’t think there are too many moments in my life where I dismiss others’ joy around me. But think there are only a few moments where I’ve joined someone’s joy the same way my boy’s joined mine. And in trying to make sense of why, I’m yet to come up with a good answer. But do hope to change that moving forward.