Microjoys | Spiegel, Cyndie

Lange Beschreibung
Bighearted and hopeful. Unflinchingly honest and healing. A profound compendium of intimate, inspiring essays and thoughtful prompts that will keep you afloat in difficult times and sustain you in the everyday.
 
Microjoys are a practice of uncovering joy and finding hope at any moment. They are accessible to everyone, despite all else. When we hone the ability to look for them, they are always available. Microjoys are the hidden wisdom, long-ago memories, subtle treasures, and ordinary delights that surround us: A polka-dot glass on a thrift store shelf. A dear friend s kindness at just the right time. The neighborhood spice shop. A beloved family tradition. The simple quietude of being in love. A cherished chai recipe.
 
Cyndie Spiegel first began taking note of microjoys during the most difficult year of her life when she experienced back-to-back unprecedented and devastating losses and she found that these fleeting moments of hope helped her move through each day with a semblance of comfort and a lot more joy.
 
Through beautifully written narrative essays and prompts, Cyndie shares the microjoys that have kept her going through tough times and shows us how we can learn to see the microjoys in our own lives. Microjoys don t change the truth of loss or make grief any more convenient, but they allow us to temporarily touch joy, keeping us buoyed and moving forward, one moment at a time.

Rezensierung
A SELF Magazine March Book Club Pick
One of TIME s 12 New Books You Should Read in February
One of BookRiot s 10 Riveting New Nonfiction Books to Read in February 2023
One of The Root s February 2023 Books by Black Authors We Can t Wait to Read

The book is a microjoy in and of itself, broken down into short chapters in which Spiegel recalls microjoys she s experienced and the magical, miraculous ways she s come to find them. At the end of each chapter, Spiegel provides a prompt to consider, guiding you to discover microjoys in your own life too. Her writing is visual, poetic, and whimsical. It s refreshing to be instructed to find purpose and calm in something other than elaborate self-care routines and self-help manuals because actually, as Spiegel demonstrates, the simplest things in life can bring about the biggest change in perspective.
SELF

After the most difficult year of Cyndie Spiegel s life, when she suffered devastating and unexpected losses, the author decided to zoom in on the small things and bask in the pleasure they bring. In her new book, Microjoys, Spiegel gives actionable guidance on how to take in these moments of joy and find relief. For Spiegel, those include her mother s cake recipe, her local spice shop, and a sun-soaked room in her new apartment. Each chapter ends with a prompt to invite readers to shift their thinking this way, too.
TIME

The real genius of microjoys is that it removes the need for things to be okay and allows things to be just as they are: a mix of joy and sorrow, okay and not okay. Learning how to experience microjoys allows you to learn how to experience microsorrows as well. And experiencing both is what it is to live fully and well.
Spirituality & Health

The book s basic premise is that we all deserve joy, even when life is terrible. This doesn t mean constant rewards through treat culture buy yourself a new jumpsuit! or faux empowerment through slogans live, laugh, love! but seeing the joys that are right in front of us at any moment. The robin in the bush. Even when, or especially when, the odds seem stacked against you. When life really seems to be putting you through it. And to know that these things, these microjoys, will not fix what is wrong but may help the load seem lighter. . . . [Microjoys] reminded me how much of life is right in front of us and how those things we take for granted as just another spin around the sun, just another day, are actually the pieces of a blissful puzzle.
The i Paper

Microjoys give us the agency to choose to embrace our emotions while trying to feel better by showing gratitude for the little things in our lives, allowing us to rest and rejoice in our current state.
Essence

Spiegel challenges readers to find joy in any situation, especially during the tough times. And she knows first-hand how difficult that can be. . . . In the book, Spiegel shares essays on the microjoys that have kept her going and shows the rest of us how we can learn to see the microjoys in our own lives.
The Root

Cyndie Spiegel is here to show us how to find any tiny joy at any moment in her lovely and hopeful book, full of essays about the things that buoyed her in a time of anguish. Microjoys will teach you how to look for the little things, like hidden wisdom and ordinary delights, that are all around, as long as you know what you look for.
BookRiot

Spiegel offers intimate essays and thoughtful prompts to help you see the micro-joys in life that will keep you buoyed and moving forward in difficult times and sustain you every day.
The Redding Sentinel

Full of heart and truth. This book is an essential companion to remind you that you are not alone.
Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy
 
I m just going to say it. Microjoys is the book we need right now. No, forget that; it s the book we always need. And more than the book even, it s the mind blowingly simple yet profoundly life changing, and for many, weirdly hard, concept of what microjoys are. I ve lived my life in the between space of grief and joy, deafness and listening, depression and being able to get out of bed, and finally I have found myself represented in a book I can carry in my purse (trust me, I carry what I love as talismans) so when I forget that life doesn t just have to be one way, that things don t only have to hard, that binary isn t the only answer I can open Cyndie Spiegel s beautiful and hilarious little bible of truth and I can find the exhale I ve been searching for. Friends, it s here. This book is like oxygen but funnier.
Jennifer Pastiloff, bestselling author of On Being Human
 
Microjoys is an inspiring and empowering book and Cyndie Spiegel is an openhearted, gifted writer. Using her own experiences navigating devastating heartbreaks as a template, Spiegel offers us delightful and profound pathways back to hope and joy. Never bypassing the reality of life s challenges, the insightful stories and powerful prompts both honor pain and invite possibility. Filled with wisdom, wit, and lots of love, this book is perfect medicine for difficult times and Spiegel is an expert guide.  
Sebene Selassie, author of You Belong
 
Microjoys! I have a name for them now, thanks to Cyndie Spiegel, and a renewed commitment to seek them out those delights, mercies, and inexplicably magic moments, big or small, that are always right there, if we only open up and pay attention. Spiegel writes that freudenfreude, the opposite of schadenfreude, is the joy we feel for others joy. I m feeling freudenfreude in advance, thinking about the readers who will discover this book, knowing the joy they ll find in these pages. I m so happy for them. For us.
Maggie Smith, author of Keep Moving and You Could Make This Place Beautiful
 
Reading Microjoys is such a big joy. Moving, inspiring, and encouraging, this is the book you read when you are grieving or celebrating or reflecting or curious or wanting more or coming back to yourself. Read it with a full or a heavy heart, a busy schedule or a lazy day, a clear or uncertain future. There is never a bad time to read these words. You'll get exactly what you need. What a gift.
Courtney Carver, author of Soulful Simplicity and founder of Be More With Less
 
Microjoys is a deep inhalation a nudge to slowly open your eyes and take in all the gifts your life shows you daily, if only you d look. What a wonderful, soulful reaffirmation that there is still beauty in this world, despite it all!
Karen Walrond, author of The Lightmaker s Manifesto and The Beauty of Different
 
Soulful, generous, and wise. Microjoys reminds us that even in times of struggle when the notion of anything worth savoring, let alone celebrating, feels beyond reach bite-sized glimmers of lightness abound. In the margins, the moments, the passing glances, and serendipitous flickers of awakening, Microjoys points the way.  
Jonathan Fields, bestselling author of Sparked and host of Good Life Project podcast
 
Brave. In Microjoys, Cyndie Spiegel encourages us to shift our perspectives. Instead of constantly seeking joy, she teaches us to notice the abundance of joy that already lives within and around us. The pages of this book enable us to find joy in the unlikeliest of places in moments of raw grief, through stunning disappointments, or when we simply don t know what to do next. This collection of thoughtful, deeply personal essays will change how you see yourself and your life through stronger, courageous, and more hopeful eyes.
Meera Lee Patel, bestselling author of Start Where You Are and How it Feels to Find Yourself
 
In a culture obsessed with silver linings and self-optimization, Microjoys is a much-needed exhale. This down-to-earth, deeply human book is a gentle invitation to notice the beauty and experience real moments of joy in what s already here, and in who we already are even, and especially, when life feels heavy and hard.
Emily McDowell, writer, illustrator, and founder of Em & Friends
 
Microjoys is a true gift to the reader. This book is for anyone looking to infuse their life with joy, meaning, and pleasure, and these pages are steeped with the reminder that even the simplest moments are rich with magic. Cyndie Spiegel provides a beautiful example of the fierce beauty that can come from moving through loss.
Claire Bidwell Smith, author of Anxiety
 
An authentic, moving, and honest take on what joy can look like during times of grief. In Microjoys, Cyndie Spiegel reminds us that being human is both beautiful and hard and we don t have to commit to the gospel of toxic positivity to be happy. Instead we can experience both authentic joy and grief if we commit to being open to it.
Marisa Renee Lee, bestselling author of Grief is Love

Spiegel, an author and inspirational speaker, writes from experience on how to balance moments of grief and hardship with sparks of joy. . . . A thoughtful reminder to appreciate the seemingly slight elements of life that can bring unexpected glee.
Kirkus

This lovely book can be repeatedly sampled and savored.
Booklist

Buchausschnitt
Part I

Observing Life:
One Absurd, Ordinary, Miraculous Moment
at a Time

The foundation of microjoys is subtlety. In an age of provocative headlines and FOMO, we are deeply attuned to what is loudest and most visible, leaving little space for nuance, quiet beauty, and the absurdity of the day-to-day. So much of life occurs during the in-between. And while we are gifting our full attention to the shiniest objects, we allow moments of profound joy, humor, and meaning to simply pass us by. Like the rare sound of a bird chirping outside of your loud city window, the gorgeous light formation reflecting on the floor from a slightly open door, mistakenly wearing your underwear inside out (Oh, that was just me then!?), or the first time you notice you have the same hands as a cherished loved one. Ordinary moments like this happen quickly and within seconds they become missed opportunities for joy.

Microjoys require us to pay attention to the details and acknowledge the fleeting, often miraculous nature of the everyday. As you read these next essays, I invite you to examine your own ordinary and delightful moments of microjoy-those that you've already experienced as well as those to come. As you do, try to remember that it is a choice to 'put yourself in the way beauty.' And also in the way of humor and symbolism, too.

The Spice Shop

My favorite Mediterranean spice shop is
in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn.
It's been around for well over a century. Though we recently moved, I return to the shop as often as I can. And every single time, I leave with paper bags overfilled with more lovely items than I could ever possibly need.

I walk in and am enveloped by the delicious smell of fresh spices, a multitude of olives, and more grains than I ever imagined could exist; bins full to the brim with goodness. I see the same smiling faces of the people who've worked there for decades. There is also the one man who insists on singing every time he sees me; it's equal parts embarrassing and charming, but that kind of familial recognition is just another reason why I keep coming back.

I take a number to purchase bulk foods and wander the store while patiently and impatiently awaiting my number to be called. I hear the sound of fresh peanut butter being ground, a cheesemonger talking about his cheeses in striking detail, and the hum of voices and languages that surround all of the daily activity of filling bins, buckets, and shelves.

On a recent visit I picked up (in no particular order) lemon salt, rose-petal preserves, Sicilian lemon extract, three kinds of olives, pink peppercorns, flake salt, and, of course, dark-chocolate-covered ginger. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with most of these items. But every time I see that jar of rose-petal preserves on my counter at home, I'm instantly transported back to that bright winter afternoon that I walked into one of my favorite little shops in Brooklyn.

A place that's been around this long could easily be overlooked as just a neighborhood grocery. But choosing to vividly see, touch, smell, and listen to what happens when I walk through those doors-that is the fundamental magic of being present.

Consider This

Choose an ordinary place that you visit often and consciously decide to be present for every detail of your experience. Allow yourself to be fully there and experience all of it. What do you notice? What sounds surround you? What do you see that you may have missed before? What resonates for you?

The Polka-Dot Glass

As if it knew that I'd need to be held and comforted during a time of great loss, my body became softer and more full. I was now two sizes larger than I'd ever been before. My clothes no longer fit; many of them, still brand new with tags, bought for the life I had in the Before Times. A metaphor for the way I felt after trudging through the last year: I also didn't fit into th