That One Thing

What’s your thing?

What’s one thing that brings you complete and utter joy?

Maybe it’s running. Gardening. Knitting. Tae Kwon Do. Hiking. Singing. Pickleball.

You might say it’s your family. But if you imagine outside of that, if it’s just you alone and the world of options, what would you choose to do, be, or have?

My son once said to me when he was young, “Mommy, you know how writing is your thing?”

“Yes?” I said.

“Hockey is my thing,” he said, emphatically.

At that time, he was a goalie and playing in travel hockey leagues. If you asked him what he wanted to do for a career, he would say he wanted to be an NHL player. Either that or work with koalas.

I wasn’t sure which was less likely.

But I admired his clarity. It’s so good to know what you want.

To know what brings you joy.

This weekend, I went with a friend to hear Room Full of Blues play at a local jazz and blues club. Room Full of Blues has 25 albums to their name over a span of the last 50 years. And there they were, a group of eight mostly middle-aged men, blues-ing it out in a club in New Hampshire on saxophones, strings, drums, and a piano.

For two hours, the guys sweated and panted, playing their hearts out. I thought, Wow! Good for you. Your parents probably told you that you couldn’t make it as a musician, yet here you all are.

Later, I googled who they were—and found music is not something they do on the side. They aren’t stockbrokers or car salesmen by day and musicians by night. Music is their thing. This is what they do.

This jazz and blues club, Jimmy's, is in a beautifully restored old YMCA building. As we heard the notes reverberating and bouncing off the ceiling and brick walls, I heard ghost voices of men yelling, basketballs bouncing, and couples swinging to music on the old gym floor. This very same room has housed thousands of people over 120 years—all doing what they loved.

What is the one thing that you would do, especially if you could make a decent living at it?

I have so many! Of course, Write. Play tennis. Own a bookstore. Run a yoga retreat center. Do coaching workshops on cruise ships. Give walk/bike tours on the Camino de Santiago.

It’s fun to dream about these things.

And it’s fun to wonder: What is it about this thing that resonates most for me? What is it about me that aligns with this thing?

Garth Nix, an Australian writer, once wrote, “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

I was studying one of the Room Full of Blues players as he belted out on his alto saxophone what made him choose that instrument. I remember choosing the clarinet only because my sister chose the flute and I thought I should be different. But in the end, did this musician choose his instrument, or did the instrument choose the musician?

I like to think in the end, the walker chooses the path and the path chooses the walker. There is a beautiful sympatico—a synchronicity—when you give in to this passion, and each chooses the other.