Hey there, today's episode is hosted by the poet Dianelli Antigua.

Enjoy, and I'll be back on June 22nd.

I'm Dianelli Antigua, and this is The Slowdown.

Thank you. And this is the slowdown. Lately, I've been thinking about joy. Not the big cinematic kind.

Not the kind that arrives with music swelling in the background.

I mean something quieter, something that comes and goes before we even have time to name it.

Joy or happiness consist of chemicals in the brain, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins.

But these are elements I don't fully know how to hold.

Even in the body, joy is something that moves. It rises.

It falls. Joy can startle us. It asks us to tip the scales in one direction, knowing how sharp the come down can feel afterward.

I'm reminded of my baby niece, who would cry whenever people laughed too loudly.

Maybe she was scared of the sheer noise.

Maybe her new body didn't know how to hold that kind of intensity. Amid everything

unfolding in the world, joy can feel more challenging to access. These days, I am my niece.

I feel joy arrive and don't quite know what to do with it. I feel it's

overwhelm and suddenness. The way it asks something of me I'm not always prepared to give.

I often hear the phrase, the risk of joy, and I keep returning to it. Is joy a risk? And if it is,

what is it that we are risking? Can I open my chest to joy knowing it might hurt me if it leaves.

I'm beginning to understand that joy doesn't exist separate from pain, but in spite of it.

It reminds me of the song Joy and Pain by Mays featuring Frankie Beverly.

The title itself holds two opposite things at once.

The existence of one calls the other into being,

...