The joy document: creating a midlife of surprise and delight

"The Joy Document is probing and uplifting, both a celebration of a half-century well lived and a meditation on what comes next. The book contains fifty essays of varying length and explores spirituality, aging, women's empowerment, identity, and the practices of cultivating gratitude and radically reclaiming joy, all while gently inspiring readers to find their own joy, to imagine or perhaps re-imagine their own best lives. In The Joy Document, almost anything can become revelatory--an Earth Day Whole Foods errand, Claire Saffitz's fruit cake recipe, a harrowing ride in Twinkly Taxi, an evening picnic at Dvorak's Symphony 8, cartwheels in the driveway, a small dog with a big erection, weekday morning gin shots, blue ghost fireflies...you name it. From this post-fifty perspective, joy is both harder to come by and easier to find, and once you begin really looking for it, you can find it pretty much anywhere"--