Joy has its own music, a spiritual hymn with movement and melodies, the notes playing through our days. And it can be muted by the sheer busyness of living. Without realizing it, we can become tone deaf to positive feelings. Negative emotions are so loud, they muffle the lovely background music. All we hear is grinding heavy metal from high expectations, over-committing, too much social media, saying “yes” more often than we say “no.”

Well, no one ever said we can keep the pretty music playing. Even in music, pitches can be in unison (consonance) or in disagreement (dissonance).

Fiction writers are advised to show a character’s primary emotions, not to gloss over them with cop-outs, like “She was afraid.” No, the visceral reaction must be shown on the page–a thrumming pulse, tight stomach muscles, hairs lifting on the character’s arms. The author learns the language of the human heart, becoming adept at taking the temperature of a scene. Along with the character, the writer feels anger, grief, happiness, love, fear, excitement. And hopefully these emotions are translated to the page so the reader can feel the character’s inner music.

To access your own joyful soundtrack, take the temperature of your feelings. Sometimes a day’s music can be calm, even humdrum, but the song can change in a heartbeat, from a soft ballad to jangling rock music. And just like that, we’re out of kilter. The problem can be itty bitty or monumental. A traffic jam. A missed appointment. Scorched biscuits. A sudden illness. 

This is my one and only life. 

Today, I will hear the music playing, good and jangly, so I won’t miss a thing.