The Joy Document: Creating a Midlife of Surprise and Delight

McGaha (Flat Broke with Two Goats), a lecturer in English at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, proffers affecting if occasionally trite tributes to finding beauty in the mundane. Inspired by a grandmother who said 55 had been her favorite year, when McGaha turned the same age she sought a “deeper way of being that was knowable only from this vantage point.” She found it in life’s smallest details, from doing a cartwheel that momentarily transported her back to childhood to watching a young girl toss a coin into a fountain. Some of the entries consider the contours of friendship (“We offered one another no solutions... the rhythm was familiar, the cadence of this side-by-side walking that good friends do”) and chance encounters with strangers, including a fumbling interaction with a Vietnam vet that highlights the poignancy of sometimes insufficient human efforts to connect. After the year was out, the author concluded that “joy must go hand in hand with gratitude, that being thankful for the many gifts of this life... is a vital, radical mindset.” McGaha’s lyrical prose lends depth to life’s seemingly forgettable moments (making tacos, eavesdropping), though a tendency to tie up the entries with bromides can feel artificial and repetitive. Still, there’s plenty here that readers will find uplifting. (Nov.)