Joyce Carol Oates and Happiness

Dear Reader,

For more reasons than can be described here, Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite writers. In 2000, she read from her novel, Blonde, at Borders Book Store in Framingham, Massachusetts. I sat several rows back in a packed room. Starstruck, I noticed that the spotlight trained on the podium made her look like a Botticelli goddess. It was that hair, the shape of her face and her posture as she lifted her head to look at us.

When her responses to an abbreviated Proust Questionnaire appeared in Vanity Fair, I absorbed every word. She had me at her answer to the first question: What is your idea of perfect happiness? “The excitement of re-writing the previous day’s work & continuing from that point energized & hopeful. For a writer, happiness isn’t likely to ever be perfect – but it is likely bound up with the work in progress.”

It was electrifying to read something that explained my writing and art making experience. If I were a composer, Oates would be describing the symphony, concerto or song on my music stand. Happiness is locked into how “the work” is going. I carry an observable lightness in my step when it’s going well. I feel stronger. It’s easier to smile back at people.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? The writer whose productivity is legendary answered, “Probably, a lack of self-discipline…I work very slowly & painstakingly & am often frustrated by accomplishing so little.” Exactly my feeling. To paraphrase Robert Frost, happiness makes up in height what is lacks in length. I need to finish the project by stretching my way into the unknown, which is frequently uncomfortable. Yet I willingly go there, knowing the miserable feelings ahead.