Secret Joy

Cool rocks, dark places, and magic

Last week, a dear friend sent me this picture. A “Joy” rock she found while on a walk with her husband. The text was an unexpected joy💣 in its own right as this is a friend who I don’t communicate with regularly. But the photo was magic.

The Joy Rock

“How perfect!!", I wrote, with two intentional “!”

“Now, the real question is, did it work?”

I was kinda joking. I mean, it’s a rock, so just because it has “Joy” written on it doesn’t mean it inherently has magical powers or shoots joy in to the universe or bestows a lifetime supply of joy and dog food on anyone who picks it up. It’s just a rock, albeit sweet and clearly placed with care.

“To be honest,” she said, “I first saw it while I was walking with my husband but I didn’t mention it, and I kept it to myself, but I was thinking about it. Then on purpose I went walking in that direction this morning to see it again and it did make me feel happy - to have the little secret message all to myself.”

Well, damn. Maybe the rock is magical.

Or maybe the delightfully devious knowledge that a rock with such joy existed undiscovered except by her made it magical. And maybe the magic got more magical when that undiscovered rock stayed put until she wandered back to receive its joy.

Secret joy. All for herself.

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My daughter cannot keep a secret. She’s also a horrific liar, both things I should probably be grateful for but tend to foil my fun when I try to plan surprises for my husband, or really anyone in our life she has any ability to communicate with.

We will have “the talk” in the car literally right before we walk in the door…

Me: “Okay, so this fishing rod we just bought is a what?”

Daughter: “SECRET!” (because we like to yell everything these days)

Me: “So that means we can’t tell Daddy about it until Father’s Day, right?”

Daughter: “RIGHT!”

Me: “So, no telling Daddy about the fishing rod, got it? We’re clear. Secret. No telling. Shhhh…quiet. Capiche?”

Daughter: 🙄🙄🙄

In the door we go, skipping all the way (we yell to talk and skip to walk).

Daughter: “Daddy! We bought you something, but we can’t tell you what it is until Father’s Day.”

Me: 🙄🙄🙄

That’s what secrets are like when you’re six. They’re less about joy and more about power, the maniacal satisfaction that you know something they don’t know. Except when you’re six, power is short lived and joy is meant to be shared, so ultimately the secret loses its fun zone fast if it must be kept. But there is so much magic in a six year old’s existence that secrets feel unnecessary anyway. Why keep it to yourself when there’s something equally if not more exciting on its way?

I don’t know when that falls away. When the power of secrets turns sour. At some point, though, we start saying things like “It’s not nice to keep secrets” which purports that the secret itself isn’t a new fishing rod but something much more insidious. Secrets somehow become weapons instead of wonder.

In my teenage years, the secrets I kept were dark, dangerous, and devoid of magic. The energy I expended to keep those secrets ate away at my joy, leaving me physically smaller, emotionally angrier, and mentally more alone. And I realized I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. So were the boys I dated, and some of those I called friends. We were all keeping secrets. Our choices born of teenage bravado but introducing us to shame. We built cover stories that sounded good to our own ears but were really just lies without evidence to the contrary.

It was in these tumultuous times when I couldn’t trust myself or most anyone else that I rediscovered the secret joy of the ocean. I’m a Pisces, a water baby, and the waves have always felt like home to me. The rhythmic back and forth, back and forth, the constancy, the imperviousness to the world mucked up in its waters bring me comfort.

At the time, my grandparents owned a condo at Myrtle Beach. One of those high rise dealios where there’s perma-sand in the elevator and like eight pools which never made sense to me until I had a kid because seemingly, you could just walk another 100 ft and be at the biggest pool of all. Once I could drive, I’d escape down there, usually during the first weekend of March Madness. No one else in our family was clamoring to go the beach in the middle of March, so I didn’t have to explain why I wanted to go solo. I also inherited my grandfather’s love of sports, so parking in front of the tv for hours to watch basketball teams I’d never heard of compete in “The Dance” sounded A-ok to me.

In the mornings, I’d walk down to the water. Alone. I was still young, so never quite made sunrise, but close. Bundled up in a sweatshirt to counter the March wind, I’d let the cold water wash over my toes.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

I’d talk to God. Not so much a prayer, really, as a soul vomit. A purging of all the dark, dangerous secrets I was keeping. I felt the rhythm in my body, the faithful rocking of the Universe whose assurance is not the stability of the ground beneath my feet, as that, too, can slip away, but the back and forth. The promise of the ground’s return.

Renewed, I’d walk back to the condo with a different secret. One I also kept, but for myself, not just to myself.

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At least in my experience of adulthood, secrets seem to be a bit more balanced. We have the agency to plan and execute (if you keep said secret from the six year old 😏) secrets like the fishing rod, a surprise birthday party, an unforeseen trip, or just an unexpected breakfast treat. We also bear significantly heavier burdens, usually with elements that if not entirely secret, are certainly private and therefore require tremendous energy to keep.

What I think we’re lacking is the joy rock.

Adulthood brings in spades all the giving - to a spouse, to a child, to aging parents, to the PTA, to the HOA, to all the 3-letter agencies, their subsidiaries, emissaries, and adversaries. Our energy is constantly expended outward, and while there are certainly people and experiences that can refill it, the directionality is from “in here” to “out there.”

But the joy rock is a reminder that there is another direction, an “out there” to “in here” rhythm that is also part of the back and forth…or, at least, should be.

There’s this statement going around on every social media feed. I don’t know who said it first, and after a weak-sauce Google search revealed that basically everyone has said it without reference, I feel less inclined to track down the OG. This here’s my favorite version because the rocks are pretty.

But what I want to write in the comments every time I see a version of this is

“I know why nobody wants to show you their cool rocks. It’s because that’s their secret you greedy fuck.”

Probably wouldn’t go over well, I know.

I’m pretty sure it’s true though. Sure, there’s the insecurity of adults showing other adults simple, mundane things like rocks, but we show each other nail polish, underwear with sticky butts so we don’t get wedgies, and every contraption known to man we’ve bought to carry all our kid crap, so is it really that scary to show other adults stupid stuff? I think not.

I think it’s that cool rocks are a secret. A secret just for us. Left by someone with an imagination who created a story about the potential finder. A story that lives in the rock and is the source of its magic. It’s a lovely secret, a soft secret that hurts no one and heals everyone. And it’s okay to want it to yourself and for yourself.

So be a secret keeper. The joy that you find was meant just for you anyways. It’s yours.

Hold on to it.

Let it be magical.