Did I ever tell you about the moment I always knew I was almost there?

Not when the pilot announced the descent. Not when I spotted the Bosphorus from the window, that silver thread cutting through the city like something out of a dream. It happened earlier than all of that. It happened the moment I heard Turkish being spoken somewhere in the cabin — a family across the aisle, two flight attendants laughing together near the galley — and something deep inside me would quietly let go.

My shoulders would drop. My breathing would change. And without meaning to, I would exhale.

Every single time. Like clockwork. Like my body had been holding itself together for weeks and finally got permission to stop.

I’ve thought a lot about what that exhale was really about. Because here’s the thing I don’t always say out loud, the part that’s harder to explain than the joy —

Leaving was never simple.

You have to understand what I was leaving. Not just a country. People. People who have known me since I was young, who remember things about me I’ve half forgotten myself. Family. Friends who go back decades. People who love me in that deep, rooted way that only comes from years and shared history and showing up for each other through the hard things.

By the time I got on that plane back to Istanbul, I was always full of them. Their faces. Their worries. The conversation we’d had over dinner that I was still turning over. The one who wasn’t doing well. The one who needed more than I had time to give. The invisible weight you carry when you love people well and you’re about to put an ocean between yourself and them again.

And I knew — I always knew — that most of them didn’t understand.

Not really.

They were gracious about it. They smiled and asked about Turkey and said how wonderful, how adventurous. But I could feel it underneath sometimes, that quiet bewilderment. Why would you want to live so far away? What does Istanbul have that we don’t? What are you looking for over there that you can’t find here, with us, at home?

I never had a clean answer for that. I still don’t, not one that fits neatly into a conversation.

How do you explain that a city can hold a part of your soul? That a language can do something to your nervous system that your mother tongue somehow doesn’t? That home isn’t always where you were born, and that realizing that is both a gift and its own particular grief?

So I would hug everybody. I would say my goodbyes. I would carry all of them with me in my chest like I always do.

And then I would get on the plane.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, the miles would start doing their quiet work.

By the time I heard Turkish again, something had shifted. Not that I loved those people any less. Not that the leaving didn’t still ache somewhere underneath. But the joy — and I mean real joy, the kind that rises up from somewhere you can’t quite locate — that joy was stronger. It always was.

There is a particular chaos to arriving at Istanbul’s airport that I have always loved, and I mean loved in the way you love something that is completely itself, unapologetically alive. Families clustered everywhere. Children running ahead, ignoring instructions in two languages. Men talking with their whole bodies. Women calling to each other across the terminal like the distance between them is merely a suggestion. Cart wheels rattling over tile floors in every direction.

It should feel like too much. For a lot of people, I think it does.

For me it felt like being exhaled into a room that already knew my name.

And then — did I ever tell you about my suitcases? They were pink. Blindingly, unapologetically, two-giant-flamingos-crossing-continents pink. I bought them after one too many near-disasters reaching for the wrong black bag at carousels in several countries. Practicality won. Dignity lost. I never looked back.

They were always heavy, those bags. Stuffed full going both directions. To America: Turkish scarves, small gifts, little treasures I thought someone might love. Back to Istanbul: medicines, cortisone cream, things you couldn’t easily find there. My life for a long stretch of years was this constant carrying of one home into the other. Literally. In pink luggage.

Sometimes kind Turkish men would offer to help me wrestle them off the carousel. When I was younger I probably would have insisted on managing alone. But I learned — eventually, slowly — that accepting kindness gracefully is its own kind of wisdom. Especially when your bag weighs fifty pounds and you’ve been traveling for eighteen hours and your back has strong opinions about both of those facts.

Before leaving the airport, I always had one small ritual.

Coke Zero.

Not Diet Mountain Dew, which would be my first choice in America without a second thought. But something about Coke Zero in Turkey tastes different to me. Better. I’ve never been able to fully explain it. Maybe it’s exhaustion finally settling. Maybe it’s relief arriving in the body before the mind has caught up. Maybe it’s just that certain ordinary things taste like joy when you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

I can still picture those moments so clearly. Standing beside my pink luggage cart, Turkish voices moving all around me, twisting off the cap, taking that first cold sip while my whole body said quietly, without drama:

Oh thank God. I’m back.

And then passport control — which I know sounds like a strange place to feel anything worth writing about. But the first time I came back carrying a residence permit tucked inside my passport instead of lining up for a tourist visa, I felt something I hadn’t expected. Not pride exactly. Something quieter and more private than that.

I live here. Not passing through. Not borrowing someone else’s home for a while. I am building a life here.

There is something sacred about being recognized as someone returning rather than simply arriving. I don’t know if that makes sense unless you’ve lived abroad before. But I think belonging always feels a little holy when you’ve had to grow into it slowly, one ordinary day at a time.

Though honestly, that isn't even the part I've been thinking about most tonight.

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There’s something about the phrase bless her heart that carries layers, especially when it comes from a Southern daughter who means it with both tenderness and truth. When I say it about my mother, I mean it in the fullest sense. She was kind, generous, and deeply loving. But there was also this one thing that used to quietly sit between us, like a conversation that never quite resolved.

Whenever the news came on—and let’s be honest, it’s rarely good news—she would shake her head and say, the world is in worse shape than it’s ever been.

And every time she said it, something in me stirred.

Not anger, not exactly. More like resistance. A quiet, persistent voice in me that said, that can’t be true.

Because I’ve always loved history. Not just the dates and events, but the human stories inside of it. And when you really sit with history, when you let it unfold in its full weight and reality, it becomes very hard to believe that this moment right now is the worst humanity has ever seen.

I would think of the Colosseum, where people were literally torn apart for entertainment. I would think of wars that stretched across continents, of families separated, of entire populations living in fear day after day. I would think of the Holocaust, of unimaginable suffering, of loss on a scale that still takes our breath away when we truly allow ourselves to feel it.

And I would gently push back.

Not because I needed to be right, but because I needed the perspective to feel whole.

Now, looking back, I hold that tension differently. I understand more. My mother was navigating her own internal landscape—PTSD, Parkinson’s, the slow shift of a nervous system under strain. What she saw wasn’t just the world out there. It was also the world within her.

And that matters.

Because the lens we look through shapes everything.

I’ve noticed this more and more, not just in her, but in conversations all around me. Someone says something with certainty, and my mind instinctively begins to turn it, almost like holding a prism up to the light. What if that’s true… and what if it isn’t? What if there’s another angle? Another layer?

Not to argue.

But to understand.

Because life, as I’ve come to see it, is never one-sided. There are always two realities unfolding at the same time. The one we focus on… and the one we overlook.

Yes, there is hardship. There always has been.

But there is also something else happening.

Something quieter. Something powerful.

Something good.

I was reminded of this recently when I came across a conversation around mental health and medication. There’s a growing awareness—one that feels both ancient and new at the same time—that perhaps we’ve leaned too heavily on treating symptoms without always tending to the deeper rhythms of the body.

And it brought me back to my own story.

For over fifteen years, I lived with the belief that certain medications were simply part of my life. Necessary. Non-negotiable. They helped regulate my nervous system, especially through chronic pain, and I truly believed I couldn’t function without them.

Until one day, I stepped away.

Not gently. Not gradually. Cold turkey.

And I won’t romanticize that part. It was hard. Disorienting at times. My body had to relearn itself in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

But something else happened too.

I began to listen.

To my body. To my rhythms. To the subtle signals I had been overriding for years.

And slowly, I found other ways.

Ways that took more intention, more presence, more patience—but also brought a kind of wholeness I hadn’t experienced before.

And what strikes me now is this: the things we’re calling breakthroughs today… many of them are not new at all. They are, in many ways, a return. A remembering of what earlier generations knew intuitively, before we drifted so far into quick fixes and disconnected solutions.

That doesn’t mean medicine isn’t valuable. It is. Deeply so.

But it does mean we are expanding.

And expansion is not the sign of a world getting worse.

It’s the sign of a world waking up.

The same is true when I think about how we live our lives.

We talk about fuel costs, about travel, about all the complexities of modern living. And yes, those things are real. But so is this: we can cross the world in a single day.

That still amazes me.

The fact that I can board a plane and, within hours, find myself walking the streets of Istanbul—one of the places my soul feels most at home—is something my great-grandparents likely could never have imagined for themselves.

That’s not a small thing.

That’s extraordinary.

And yet, it’s so easy to forget the wonder because we’re surrounded by it.

We’ve normalized miracles.

But perhaps the most powerful shift I’m witnessing right now isn’t technological. It’s human.

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way people—especially women—are beginning to see themselves.

For so long, many have tried to fit into systems that were never designed with them in mind. Structured environments that value productivity over presence, logic over intuition, output over alignment.

And something is changing.

I hear it in conversations with women who don’t even know each other, who live in different places, who have completely different lives—and yet they are saying the same thing.

Something feels different.

Like a door has opened.

Or more accurately… like a gate.

A wide, expansive gate that doesn’t just lead to another room, but to an entirely new landscape.

A place where you don’t have to force yourself into a shape that doesn’t belong to you.

A place where your way of thinking, your way of feeling, your way of creating… is not only valid, but needed.

And it always brings me back to the same question I ask at the beginning of so many conversations:

What do you believe?

Because our beliefs don’t just sit quietly in the background. They shape how we interpret everything. They determine what we notice, what we dismiss, what we expect, and what we allow.

If you believe the world is only getting worse, you will find evidence for that everywhere.

But if you allow yourself—even just for a moment—to consider that something else might also be true…

That perhaps, alongside the chaos, there is growth.

Alongside the noise, there is clarity.

Alongside the struggle, there is opportunity.

Then suddenly, the view begins to shift.

And that gate?

It doesn’t feel so closed anymore.

In fact, you might realize it’s already open.

Waiting.

Not for the world to change… but for you to walk through it.

Because from where I stand, the horizon ahead is not something to fear.

It’s something to step into.

With curiosity.

With courage.

And maybe, just maybe…

With joy.

The Joy Ambassador | Architect of Joy

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed.

The dream arrived during a very specific season of my life. I had just returned from spending six weeks in a safe house in Romania, working alongside anti-trafficking groups. It was meaningful work, the kind that carries both purpose and weight, and I was fully immersed in it at the time. There was no sense of searching or questioning then. I was simply doing what I believed I was meant to do.

And then, without warning or expectation, this dream came.

Once upon a time 😊 a woman, known as Neşe, with a heart full of passion to help women escape human trafficking felt compelled to sell all that she had and moved to a foreign country to learn the women’s language. Neşe purchased a small house and spent the remainder of her funds to create a beautiful, cozy safe home with lovely fabrics hanging on the wall with brilliant colors. The colors were so vibrant and bright, Neşe called them the colors of joy.

Even now, I can still see that house with remarkable clarity, not just in its physical details, but in the feeling it carried, because it wasn’t subtle or quiet in any sense of the word. It was alive with color and light in a way that felt almost otherworldly, as though you had stepped into a space where joy didn’t just exist, but surrounded you completely.

The walls were swathed in rich, jewel-toned fabrics—deep blues, vibrant reds, glowing golds—materials that seemed to shimmer as though they were catching light from every direction. It wasn’t a single source of light you could point to, but rather a warmth that seemed to exist everywhere at once, like the soft, radiant glow of the mosaic lamps you might find hanging throughout the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. The kind that cast intricate patterns and make everything feel both intimate and expansive at the same time.

There were no visible candles, and yet it felt as though the entire space was lit from within. The light didn’t simply illuminate the room, it moved through it, reflecting and dancing across the fabrics so that everything seemed to glow. It was vibrant, abundant, almost as if there were tiny flecks of light suspended in the air itself, catching your eye just enough to make you pause and take it in.

Nothing about it was restrained. Nothing about it was quiet. It was a full expression of beauty, warmth, and joy, offered generously, without hesitation, as though the space itself was saying to every woman who entered: there is more here than you expected, and there is more for you than you thought possible.

And then the women began to arrive.

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Wait… what dandelion? So did you see the dandelion… or just another weed?

It’s funny how something so small can go completely unnoticed, or worse, be noticed only long enough to be removed. A plant most people try to get rid of is actually one of the first to give. It feeds bees when nothing else can, restores the soil quietly beneath the surface, and grows exactly where it’s needed most, whether we invited it there or not. There’s something kind of beautiful in that, although I didn’t always think so.

When I was growing up, a dandelion wasn’t something to admire. It was something to eliminate. My mother loved a beautiful lawn, and not just beautiful in a casual sense, but truly pristine. She was meticulous in everything she did, a woman of high standards who took pride in doing things well, and her lawn was no exception. The moment those yellow blooms started appearing, the weed killer came out. They were removed quickly and efficiently, because in our world, they didn’t belong. At the time, it never crossed our minds that we might be removing something important. We just knew we had a lawn that looked perfect, and in many ways, it was.

But standing here now, years later, looking at that same bright yellow flower pushing its way up through the grass, I see something entirely different. What once looked like something out of place now feels like something worth pausing for. And it makes me wonder how often in life we’ve done the same thing, rushing to remove anything that doesn’t quite fit the picture we’re trying so hard to create, convinced that perfection comes from control.

I followed that same pattern for a long time. I built a life the way I had been taught to build it, carefully, intentionally, doing everything I could think of to make it right. I listened to people who were wiser and more experienced, followed the examples set before me, and worked to shape something that felt stable, meaningful, and as close to perfect as I could make it. And for a while, it was good. It really was.

But life has a way of introducing things you didn’t plan for, things you can’t control, no matter how carefully you’ve tried to prepare. And when those moments come, they don’t ask for your approval. They simply arrive, and suddenly the life you thought you had so carefully arranged doesn’t quite hold together the way you expected it to.

Looking back now, I can see that was my dandelion moment.

That’s what happened to me.

What I thought was the end of one life became the beginning of another. A life that opened up in ways I never could have predicted, one that carried me into experiences I would have missed completely if everything had gone according to plan. I traveled. I saw things. I stepped into a world that felt bigger, fuller, and more alive than anything I had tried to design on my own.

And now, when I look back at that moment, I don’t see something that went wrong.

I see seeds.

And maybe that’s what a dandelion has been trying to show us all along. That not everything we’re so quick to remove is a mistake. That some of the very things we label as inconvenient or out of place are quietly doing work we don’t yet understand. Feeding something. Restoring something. Preparing something.

So now, when I see that bright yellow flower in the grass, I don’t reach for a way to get rid of it.

I pause.

Because what once looked like a weed…

now looks like possibility.

If this story resonated with you, I’d love for you to join me here.

The Joy Ambassador | Architect of Joy

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed.

I was reading a beautifully written historical novel the other day when a single phrase suddenly caught my attention.

My one great love.

In the story, the heroine quietly confesses that she hopes she might one day experience a great love like the one she sees unfolding around her. It struck me because the woman herself was already living a remarkable life. She was risking her own safety to help others. She was making a difference in the world.

And yet even she carried that same quiet yearning.

For just a moment, I recognized that feeling in myself.

I’ve talked about it before with girlfriends. That question many of us eventually ask at some point in life.

Where is my soulmate?

Does he exist somewhere in the world, living his life completely unaware that we are meant to meet? Has he simply not appeared yet? Or, sometimes more unsettling, did I somehow pass him by without realizing it?

Those thoughts occasionally cross my mind. But they rarely stay long.

Because the truth is, most days I’m happy. When I’m living the life I feel called to live—when I’m doing work that matters to me, exploring the world, writing, connecting with people—I feel deeply fulfilled. The longing fades into the background.

Joy has a way of doing that.

Still, that phrase from the novel stayed with me.

My one great love.

And almost immediately another realization surfaced, one that has visited me more than once over the past twenty years.

I’ve described it that way for years now. I often say that I fell in love with Turkey, and I truly believe that love arrived through divine providence. It appeared in my life at exactly the moment I needed it.

It came during a turning point. A season when the relationship I once believed would be the great love of my life came to an end. Suddenly the future was wide open again. I could shape my life however I chose.

And what appeared?

Not a new man.

Not a new romantic relationship.

Instead, a place appeared.

A place that slowly grew to occupy a larger space in my life than anything else. A place that has quietly guided countless decisions I’ve made over the past two decades.

All because I fell in love with a country.

We say things like,

Well, that’s just how they are.
She puts up with that because she loves him.
He does that because he loves her.

Love covers a multitude of sins, as the old saying goes.

But what happens when someone falls in love with a place?

What happens when the great love of someone’s life is a country… a culture… a city?

Do we extend the same understanding?

I’m not sure that we do.

If my devotion were directed toward a person, people would probably shrug their shoulders and move on. But when my decisions revolve around a place—when people see me drawn again and again toward Turkey—it sometimes puzzles them.

Why there?

Why so strongly?

Why does it matter that much?

There is a quiet happiness that settles over me.

I feel at home.

That feeling is strongest in Istanbul. Something about that city speaks to me at a level deeper than logic. The rhythm of it, the energy of it, the centuries layered into every street. I love other parts of Turkey as well, but Istanbul is where I most deeply recognize that feeling of belonging.

It’s not something I experience anywhere else in quite the same way.

And certainly not with anyone else.

Now I should probably apologize to the many wonderful men I’ve dated over the years—and to any I might date in the future—because I want to be honest about something.

I really do like men.

I like companionship. I enjoy having a partner to explore life with. Sharing experiences with someone is one of the joys of being human.

But at least up to this point in my life, I have not been willing to give up what feels like my one true love—Turkey—for someone who may or may not turn out to be that great love.

It’s a curious thing to admit.

And I don’t know if the answer to that question will ever fully reveal itself.

Perhaps somewhere in the world there is still a great romantic love waiting to appear. Perhaps not.

Life has a way of surprising us.

But one thing I do know is this.

If you ask me where my one great love is, I already have the answer.

It’s in Turkey.

The only place where I feel that particular kind of love—from the top of my head all the way down to the very soles of my feet—is when I’m standing in that country.

So if you ever see me with a plane ticket in my hand, you probably don’t even need to ask where I’m going.

I think you already know.

The Joy Ambassador | Architect of Joy

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed.

Have you ever tried to swing without smiling?

I mean really tried… legs pumping, reaching just a little higher each time, that moment when your body catches the rhythm and suddenly you’re not just swinging anymore, you’re flying. Have you ever done that and not smiled?

I don’t think it’s possible.

I was reminded of that recently while watching a scene in a film—two adults, both clearly carrying more than their share of life, sitting side by side on a set of swings. One of them still had it… that lightness, that almost stubborn childlike joy that refuses to disappear, even when life gives you every reason to let it go. And so, naturally, they did what any self-respecting child would do.

They turned it into a competition.

Let’s see who can swing higher.

And just like that, the weight lifted. Laughter replaced whatever had been sitting on their shoulders, and for a few moments, nothing else mattered. Not the problems. Not the past. Not the future. Just the rhythm of the swing and the sound of joy breaking through.

It stayed with me longer than I expected.

Maybe because just the day before, life had felt a little… heavy. Nothing dramatic, just that quiet kind of overwhelm that sneaks in and settles itself without asking permission. And instead of trying to power through it, I did something I haven’t done in a while.

I walked down to the little park a couple of blocks away… and I sat on the swings.

Now, I’ll admit, I didn’t go quite as high as I used to. There was a time when that wouldn’t have even been a question. Especially at church camp, where the swings were nothing short of legendary. They sat on the side of a hill, long and sturdy, the kind built for actual flying, not just polite back-and-forth motion.

If you faced downhill and let yourself go, you didn’t feel like you were swinging.

You felt like you had left the ground entirely.

And I did. Repeatedly.

High enough, in fact, that a few times I thought, this might be the moment I regret all my life choices… because motion sickness and I have a very real relationship. But even then, even on the edge of spinning out completely, there was something so freeing about it that I didn’t stop.

You don’t care if someone thinks you’re too old.

You don’t even care if this might not end well.

You’re just… in it.

Also—and let’s just be honest—there were a few cute boys around from time to time, so that didn’t exactly hurt the experience. I mean, we’re talking about joy in all its forms here. Might as well be thorough.

But what struck me at the park that day wasn’t just the memory.

It was a young mother with her two little ones, maybe three years old and barely walking. They looked at the swings the way children do, like they were the most magical invention ever created, and I could tell they wanted to be pushed.

I wanted to push them too.

But there’s that unspoken rule as an adult—you don’t just step in without invitation. So I waited, and thankfully, she came over and helped them into the swings.

And then something beautiful happened.

They started talking to me.

Little voices, full of nothing but delight, faces completely lit up as they moved back and forth, back and forth, like the whole world had been distilled down into that one simple motion. No worries. No hesitation. Just joy.

And somehow, just watching them… lifted something in me.

Isn’t that interesting?

How something so simple can shift the entire tone of a day.

It made me think about those moments we so often overlook. The ones that don’t look impressive from the outside. Like making your bed while the sunlight pours through the window and suddenly the sky looks impossibly blue, and for no logical reason at all, you feel this surge of joy that almost catches you off guard.

Those moments.

The ones that don’t announce themselves.

The ones that don’t wait for perfect conditions.

The ones that just… arrive.

In my opinion, those are the moments that give life its fullness.

Because what is the alternative?

Keeping our heads down. Pushing through. Getting everything done. And missing the entire point in the process.

Swinging, in its own quiet way, teaches something we don’t often think about.

You can’t multitask on a swing.

You can’t read a book. You can’t sip your coffee. You can’t scroll your phone. If you try, there’s a very real chance you’re going to end up on the ground wondering what just happened.

If you want to go high, you have to hold on.

With both hands.

You have to focus. You have to commit to the motion. You have to be fully present in what you’re doing.

And maybe… just maybe… that’s part of why it feels so good.

It pulls you out of everything else.

And brings you back to one simple thing.

Joy.

Now, I will say this—merry-go-rounds and I are not in the same category. Those have tried to take me out on more than one occasion. I’ve had to ask for them to be stopped mid-spin just so I could stumble off with a shred of dignity intact. So no, not all playground equipment is created equal.

But swings?

Swings are different.

They’ve always been different.

Even back when I was thirteen, starting at a new school where I didn’t know a single person, riding thirty miles each way because my parents cared deeply about giving me the best education they could. It wasn’t the easiest season, but there were bright spots.

One of them was recess.

I somehow became the unofficial playground helper, pushing the younger kids on the swings, making sure everyone was safe, and secretly loving every minute of it.

And then one day, after the little ones went inside, it was our turn.

So naturally… I got on a swing.

And I did what I always do.

I went high.

Really high.

Higher than was probably advisable, especially considering those swings may not have been designed for someone quite so enthusiastic about defying gravity.

And then, in one very memorable moment…

The swing broke.

Completely.

And I went flying.

I hit the ground so hard I’m fairly certain my teeth introduced themselves to each other in a way they never had before. I walked away with bruises that stuck around for days.

But here’s the part that matters.

I didn’t stop swinging.

Because that’s the question, isn’t it?

Or do you get back on?

Because the truth is, most of the time…

The swing doesn’t break.

Most of the time, it holds.

Most of the time, it carries you exactly the way it was meant to.

And if you let one moment stop you, you miss all the others.

So now, when I look at a swing, yes, I remember that day.

But I also remember every other time.

Every moment of flying.

Every burst of laughter.

Every quiet reset.

And I do the math.

The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of joy.

So I get on.

I hold on.

And I swing.

Because I don’t plan on ever stopping.

Deronda Aiken

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed.

There are certain things you grow up believing are simply the way the world works.

One of those things, in our house, was that you made your bed before you left for the day.

That was not exactly presented as a philosophical concept. It was simply part of the natural order of things, like brushing your teeth or closing the door behind you. You got up in the morning, you got dressed, and before you walked out of your room, you made your bed.

Now, I will say this for my mother: she was not harsh about it. But she did believe that a home had a certain rhythm to it, and part of that rhythm was keeping things in order.

And boy howdy, if someone walked into your room and that bed was still unmade, well… that would definitely not reflect well on you.

So yes, I was taught to make my bed.

But something else was happening in our house that I did not understand until many years later.

Our mornings were lively.

We had one bathroom and three adults trying to get out the door and into the world at roughly the same time. Which meant the mornings carried a certain kind of energy. Someone brushing their teeth. Someone knocking lightly on the door. Someone calling down the hallway that they were almost done.

And always, in the background, the radio.

First thing in the morning, the radio was on.

It was simply part of the house waking up.

The voices of the announcers, a little music here and there, the low hum of sound that made the kitchen and hallway feel alive before the day had even properly begun.

Those mornings were not rushed in the frantic way people sometimes imagine now. They were busy, certainly, but they had a kind of natural rhythm to them.

And right in the middle of all that movement, there was often one small interruption that belonged entirely to me.

Sometimes, on my way out the door, I would suddenly stop.

I would walk over to the piano.

And I would play just a little tune.

Nothing elaborate. Nothing long. Just a few notes, sometimes a melody that had been running through my head. But I felt almost compelled to do it before leaving the house, as if something inside me needed that brief moment of music before stepping into the rest of the day.

Which meant, of course, that once in a while the bed did not get made.

I was busy getting ready, finding my books, navigating the bathroom schedule, and occasionally stopping to play the piano before I left.

And when that happened, my mother would quietly say something that I did not fully appreciate at the time.

She would say, almost casually, “Honey, if you don’t have time to make your bed this morning, that’s alright. I’ll do it after you leave.”

At the time, I assumed she was simply being helpful.

But now I realize she was doing something much deeper.

She was recognizing something about her daughter.

And interestingly enough, it lived in something many people would consider rather ordinary: cleaning the house.

She loved having the house neat and orderly. Not in a rigid way, but in a way that made the space feel peaceful and alive.

First thing in the morning it was the radio.

Later in the afternoon, when the day had settled a bit, the music would change.

If she could persuade me to help her stack the records, sometimes she would put those on. But most often it was the music from her favorite gospel station.

And while she cleaned, she sang.

Not dramatically. Not as though she were performing for anyone.

She just sang along as she moved through the house.

Dusting.

Straightening.

Making beds.

Changing sheets.

As a child, I remember watching her and thinking something rather funny.

I assumed she was singing because cleaning house must be terribly boring.

So she was entertaining herself while she worked.

But now, looking back with the perspective of many years, I realize something entirely different was happening.

She was not singing in order to make the work bearable.

She was singing because she was happy.

That was where her rhythm lived.

There was a look she sometimes had on her face while she was moving through the house with the music playing. A kind of peaceful concentration, almost as if her thoughts were traveling somewhere lovely while her hands continued their work.

And I never understood that as a child.

But I understand it now.

The other day, something small happened that brought all of this rushing back to me.

I was changing the sheets on my bed.

Not first thing in the morning, the way I had been taught all those years ago.

Just later in the day when it needed to be done.

I lifted the sheet and let it fall gently across the mattress, and for just a moment it floated through the air before settling down.

It was the strangest sensation, because the moment felt so ordinary, and yet it carried with it the exact same feeling I used to experience when I was a teenager standing outside under an enormous blue sky.

That feeling of openness.

Of possibility.

Of life stretching out endlessly ahead of you.

For just a moment, I felt almost… exalted.

And suddenly I thought of my mother.

I thought about her singing while she cleaned.

I thought about the music in the house.

I thought about the mornings with the radio playing.

And I realized something that stopped me in my tracks.

I had stepped, without even noticing it, into my own rhythm of joy.

For years I believed the lesson was about making the bed.

About discipline.

About starting the day properly.

And those things certainly have their place.

But now I see that something much more beautiful was happening all along.

My mother was not just teaching me responsibility.

She was also making space for the way I moved through the world.

She could see that my mornings belonged to creativity.

That sometimes I needed to play a few notes on the piano before leaving the house.

That my rhythm did not always look exactly like hers.

And instead of forcing me into her rhythm, she quietly supported mine.

She still taught me how to care for a home.

She still expected me to be responsible.

Hers lived in the music playing while she cleaned.

Mine lived in a piano melody before stepping out into the day.

Now, when I think back on those mornings, the lesson about making the bed feels much smaller than the lesson she was actually teaching.

The real lesson was about recognizing where joy lives.

Sometimes it lives in the satisfaction of a tidy room.

Sometimes it lives in the quiet pleasure of music playing through the house.

And sometimes it lives in the simple moment when a sheet floats gently down onto a freshly made bed and, for reasons you cannot quite explain, your spirit lifts with it.

My mother understood that rhythm long before I did.

And like so many things our mothers quietly give us, it took many years before I realized what a gift that understanding truly was. ✨

If this story resonated with you, I’d love for you to join me here.

Deronda Aiken

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed.

If you’d rather listen, I recorded this story in my own voice.

Someone asked me the other day a question that made me stop and think.

Which do I miss more?

Istanbul or New York City.

My first instinct was simple. Istanbul. That answer comes easily because Istanbul feels like home to me in a way that is difficult to explain unless you have had a city reach out and claim your heart like that.

But the question stayed with me as I drove home.

New York City was my first experience living in a truly big city. Not visiting. Living. The kind of place where the streets pulse with energy and you feel like anything could happen if you just turn the next corner.

New York has those bright lights that fire something up inside of me. Istanbul has ancient stones and history layered upon history. Both cities carry a promise of adventure that I find irresistible.

And then, as I was driving, I passed a street sign that said International Avenue.

I remember smiling when I saw it.

Any street called International has to be good.

At least that is how it feels to me.

I started wondering why that word always brings me such a sense of excitement. Not everyone feels that way about the idea of international. For some people it may sound unfamiliar, complicated, or even intimidating.

But to me, international means stories.

And suddenly I was thinking about New York again.

About the people.

Because when I think about New York City, the skyscrapers are impressive. The skyline is unforgettable. For the first few weeks I lived there I walked around just like every tourist does, with my head tilted back, staring straight up at buildings that seemed impossibly tall.

One of them was a man named Johnny.

Johnny worked in the stockroom at Macy’s. If you have ever worked retail, you know how important the stockroom person is. When a customer asks if you have something in another size, that person is the one who can save the day.

Johnny saved the day a lot.

Before I moved to New York City, I had never met anyone from the Dominican Republic. Johnny was the first. He was fantastic at his job. Truly fantastic. He knew exactly where everything was in that stockroom maze.

You would go back there looking for something specific, and before you even finished explaining what you needed, Johnny was already walking toward the shelf where it lived.

And he always brought it back with a smile.

Not the kind of polite smile people use when they are just being professional. Johnny had the kind of smile that came from somewhere deeper. The kind that says life may not be easy, but I am still going to show up fully.

I loved going into the stockroom because there was a good chance Johnny would be there.

Eight times out of ten, he was.

And when things slowed down for just a moment, we would talk.

Not long conversations. Retail rarely allows that. But enough to get pieces of his story. He told me about his life, his regrets, and his hopes for the future. New York City is expensive, and Johnny was living very modestly. Just a small place. One room.

But he had a goal.

He was saving money so he could bring more of his family from the Dominican Republic to the United States.

That smile of his started to make more sense to me the more I knew about him.

Johnny had decided that if he was going to be there, he was going to do his job well and make people’s days a little better whenever he could.

We stayed in touch for quite a while after that.

Looking back now, I think the reason is simple.

We were two souls who were both looking for moments of joy in unexpected places.

Years later, long after I had moved away from New York, someone sent me something online they thought I would enjoy.

It was called Humans of New York.

If you have ever seen it, you know what it is. A photographer walking around the city, stopping strangers, asking them about their lives, and sharing their stories.

I read those stories constantly for a while.

I still go back and read them from time to time.

One story in particular has stayed with me all these years. It was about a woman in a wheelchair who had been living on the streets. Her life had been unimaginably difficult. And yet when she talked about it, what came through most strongly was not bitterness.

It was resilience.

And joy.

Her story spread so widely that thousands of people rallied around her. Her life began to change in ways she never expected.

But what struck me most was not the outcome.

It was the way she described finding joy in places most people would never think to look.

That image of her sitting there in that wheelchair has stayed with me all these years.

So when people ask me what I miss about New York City, I could talk about the skyline.

I could talk about Times Square.

I could talk about Broadway or the lights or the energy.

But those are not the first things that come to mind.

I think about Johnny in the Macy’s stockroom.

I think about the families I went to church with. Some of them I still follow on Facebook today, watching their lives unfold in ways none of us could have predicted.

Some of those people now have a different address entirely.

A heavenly one.

And sometimes that thought makes me a little nostalgic, maybe even a little sad. Because if I ever land in New York again, there are people I once saw every week who will not be there anymore.

But their influence is still there.

I also think about a little girl whose first birthday party I attended while I was living there. I was renting a room from her family, and they included me in the celebration.

She was just learning to walk then. She would take a few determined steps and then suddenly sit down without warning. It was absolutely adorable.

Now she is nearly grown.

Time has a way of doing that.

When I think about New York City now, I realize something simple but profound.

People like Johnny.

People who quietly decide that no matter what their circumstances are, they are going to bring a little joy into the room when they walk in.

That is the kind of legacy that stays with you.

And if a few words about joy from time to time leave even a small impression on someone else, I would consider that a beautiful continuation of the legacy I was given. A legacy of looking for joy in unexpected places.

If this story resonated with you, I’d love for you to join me here.

Deronda Aiken

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed.

Some people inherit jewelry or furniture from their grandparents.
What I inherited instead were stories told in my grandmother’s living room, while Southern gospel played softly and a cuckoo clock interrupted us every fifteen minutes.
It was there that I first learned how memory keeps love alive long after the people we love are gone.

When I think about my grandmothers, I often say that I was blessed with two extraordinary women.

One was my soulmate.

The other was my playmate.

The one who was my playmate might surprise people if they had only known her casually. She was not naturally bubbly or outwardly joyful. In many ways she carried a quiet seriousness about her, a thoughtful melancholy that seemed to follow her through life.

Life had given her reasons for that.

She lost my grandfather when she was still in her thirties. My father was only ten years old when it happened. She never remarried, and although she carried on with strength and dignity, I think part of her heart always remained with him.

But every once in a while, something beautiful would happen.

She would relax.

She would laugh.

She would play.

And when she did, she came completely alive.

One of my favorite memories of her is at a playground. There was a giant shoe there that children could climb inside. Most adults would stand nearby and watch the children play.

Someone took a picture of her standing there with a playful grin on her face, and when I look at that picture now I realize something. In that moment she wasn’t thinking about life’s losses or responsibilities.

She was simply playing.

Those were the moments I loved most.

Most of our visits with her, though, happened in a much quieter place.

Her living room.

If I walked into that room today, I could still feel it. Many afternoons we would sit together there drinking tea while the conversation slowly unfolded. Sometimes it was just everyday family talk. Other times she would bring out her photo albums.

That was when things became magical.

She would open the albums page by page, telling the stories behind the pictures. We would laugh about relatives, remember old family moments, and ask questions about people we had never met.

That was how I came to know my grandfather.

I never met him. He had died when my father was just a boy. But I was hungry to know who he was, so I asked my grandmother questions about their life together.

She loved those questions.

She told me about the farmhouse in Nebraska they had been preparing to renovate when he died. When she spoke about those years, something in her face softened.

I didn’t understand it when I was young.

But I see it now.

Those were the years when she had been happiest.

Remembering them seemed to bring her back there for a little while.

There was almost always music playing in that living room too.

My grandmother loved music. She didn’t play instruments like my other grandmother did, although every once in a while she would pick up a harmonica and play a little tune. Mostly she loved to listen.

Her stereo was one of the most important pieces of furniture in the room.

Whenever we came to visit, she often had music playing softly in the background. It was always Southern gospel or old hymns. Sometimes it might be a recording of classic hymns, sometimes newer versions sung by artists who loved those old songs.

The music seemed to belong to the room just as much as the furniture did.

And then there was the cuckoo clock.

It hung on the wall and had a habit of interrupting whatever we were doing.

Every fifteen minutes it would announce itself.

Cuckoo.

Cuckoo.

Sometimes it was charming. Sometimes it was a little annoying, especially when it chimed right in the middle of a story. And if someone was spending the night at her house, she would stop the clock so it wouldn’t wake us during the night.

But the truth is, that clock became part of the rhythm of being there.

Time moved forward.

Stories moved backward.

And somehow both things happened in that living room at the same time.

My grandmother cared deeply about preserving family history. She had saved old documents from earlier generations, including citizenship papers from ancestors who had come to America. She even made copies for the grandchildren so that each of us would have them.

Looking back now, I realize she was doing something very intentional.

She was making sure the stories would continue after she was gone.

Years later, when I was living in Turkey, my family let me know that she was not doing well. She had endured so much loss in her life. She had outlived my father, which I know had been incredibly hard for her.

And yet she remained strong.

She simply kept going.

When the news came that she had passed away, my family asked each of us to share a favorite memory of her for the funeral.

Since I couldn’t travel back from Turkey, I sent my story to my cousin and asked him to read it for me.

It was the story that captured my grandmother perfectly.

Everyone in our family knew that it was not wise to leave Christmas presents at her house too early.

She was curious.

Very curious.

One Thanksgiving, my aunt and uncle decided to take the risk anyway. They lived several hours away and thought they would save themselves a trip later by bringing her Christmas gift early.

It was a large box.

Beautifully wrapped.

After everyone had gone home that evening, my grandmother sat in her recliner looking at that package.

Then she noticed something dangerous.

A tiny tear in the wrapping paper.

She later told us exactly what she thought.

Well, there’s already a tear there. If I just move it a little bit, maybe I can see what’s inside.

Of course curiosity rarely stops with just a peek.

The tear grew.

And grew.

Until eventually the entire package was open.

Inside was something she absolutely loved. It was one of those blanket sleepers where you could slip your feet inside and zip it all the way up to your neck. Her little house had only a floor furnace, and parts of it could get quite chilly.

So she tried it on.

She sat in her recliner, zipped up nice and cozy, perfectly content.

And that was exactly when the phone rang.

Now this was before cell phones. The phone was on the wall.

Which meant she had to get up to answer it.

But there was a problem.

She tried to unzip it.

The zipper stuck.

The phone kept ringing.

She wrestled with the zipper, finally managed to answer the phone, and by the time she did she was completely out of breath.

Her daughter immediately asked what was wrong.

And that was when my grandmother had to confess that she had opened her own Christmas present early, tried it on, and gotten stuck inside it before the holiday had even arrived.

The entire family laughed about that story for years.

And that is the story my cousin read at her funeral.

Because in that one moment you could see everything about her.

Her curiosity.

Her playfulness.

Her honesty.

Now when I think about my grandmother, I don’t feel heavy grief.

I feel something gentler.

A quiet fondness.

Sometimes I imagine walking back into that living room again. Sitting down for another afternoon visit. Having a cup of tea while she pulls out the photo albums and begins telling the stories one more time.

Soft gospel music playing in the background.

And somewhere on the wall, that cuckoo clock interrupts the conversation.

Cuckoo.

Cuckoo.

A small reminder that time keeps moving forward.

But that living room was one of the first places I learned something important.

Stories keep people alive.

If this story resonated with you, I’d love for you to join me here.

Deronda Aiken

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be notice

How learning tenor on Amazing Grace shaped the way I listen to people’s stories

One of my favorite memories from childhood begins in a very ordinary place.

My mother sat me down and taught me how to sing harmony.

I was probably seven or eight years old at the time. I don’t remember exactly which year it was, but I remember the moment itself very clearly. It wasn’t accidental or casual. She did it deliberately, almost like she was passing something important along to me.

And the first part she taught me was tenor.

Now, if you know anything about choir music, you might already see the irony there. Tenor is not typically the vocal part a young girl learns first. In most choirs, tenor is sung by men. Women are usually placed in soprano or alto.

But my mother started me on tenor.

And the song she used to teach me was Amazing Grace.

I had forgotten that detail for years until it surfaced in my mind recently, like a small treasure tucked away in memory.

Amazing Grace.

When you think about it, that feels almost symbolic.

She didn’t sit down with a complicated piece of music or some technical exercise. She chose a song that carries centuries of meaning and emotion, a melody almost everyone recognizes the moment it begins.

But she didn’t teach me the melody.

She taught me the harmony.

While the melody floated above, she guided my voice into that inner line—the tenor part that lives inside the chord, not on top of it.

At the time, I didn’t think much about what she was doing. I was just a child learning to sing. But over the years, I discovered something about myself.

I loved harmony.

Alto became comfortable for me later, and I enjoy singing it because it’s rich and deep. But tenor still brings me the most joy when it fits my voice in a particular song.

There’s something about tenor that feels satisfying in a way that’s hard to explain.

Tenor sits in the middle of the music.

Not the melody that everyone hears first.

Not the bass that anchors the bottom.

Tenor lives in the center, connecting the parts and filling out the sound of the chord.

When I was younger, I sometimes wished I had the kind of voice that could carry the lead.

My mother had that kind of voice. So did my grandmother. Both of them had strong, beautiful lead voices. In fact, if either of them had chosen to pursue a career in music, they very easily could have done so.

But they didn’t.

If there had ever been a musical career for me, it would have been with them — singing together — not standing alone on a stage by myself.

As a young person, there was a little disappointment in that realization. The idea of singing professionally was appealing, but I instinctively understood that the way I fit into music was through singing alongside others, not apart from them.

Looking back now, I realize something surprising.

That lesson about harmony didn’t just shape the way I sing.

It shaped the way I move through life.

Harmony singers don’t dominate a song. They listen carefully to what’s already there. They hear the melody, understand where the music is going, and then add their voice in a way that strengthens the whole.

When harmony enters a song, something remarkable happens.

The melody suddenly becomes richer.

Deeper.

More emotional.

And I’ve begun to realize that the same thing happens in conversations.

When people talk with me, they often say something curious.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Or they stop mid-story and laugh and say, “I don’t know how we got onto this subject.”

But what’s really happening is something very similar to what happens in music.

Someone begins sharing the melody of their story.

And when I listen carefully and reflect back what I hear — when I ask a thoughtful question or add an observation that helps them see their experience in a new way — the story deepens.

It becomes fuller.

More meaningful.

Almost like harmony entering the music.

That’s when people often discover something unexpected.

They realize where they found joy.

Sometimes in places they never noticed before.

Sometimes in moments that were hidden inside difficult experiences.

Sometimes in stories they had never quite finished telling.

The truth is, I don’t believe I was designed to sing the melody alone.

God created me to sing harmony.

With my voice.

And in life.

Harmony doesn’t compete with the melody. It supports it. It gives it depth. It makes the music resonate more fully.

Looking back, I think my mother understood something when she sat me down and taught me tenor on Amazing Grace.

She may not have realized it at the time.

But that small lesson quietly set the course for the way I hear people, the way I listen to stories, and the way I hope to live my life.

Because sometimes the most powerful role in a song is not the one everyone hears first.

Sometimes it’s the voice that helps the music become whole.

If this story resonated with you, I’d love for you to join me here.

Deronda Aiken

Helping you find joy in unexpected places…
because joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits to be noticed

Over the past year I’ve spent a good deal of time reflecting. Watching my own reactions to things. Watching the world. Noticing what I give my attention to, and what that attention does to my spirit.

Little by little, something has been becoming clearer.

For a long time I described myself as the Joy Ambassador. And in many ways that still feels true. An ambassador represents something that already exists. An ambassador points toward something good and says, Look at this. Notice this. This matters.

And I do believe that joy is always present in our lives, even when things feel uncertain or heavy. Sometimes it’s obvious. Other times it’s quieter, waiting patiently for us to notice it.

But lately I’ve realized something else.

Joy doesn’t just appear fully formed in our lives. More often than not, it has to be built — deliberately, thoughtfully, sometimes even protectively.

That realization has been quietly reshaping the way I think about my role in the world.

Because an ambassador and an architect do very different kinds of work.

An ambassador represents what already exists. But an architect designs the structure people live inside. An architect chooses the materials, lays the foundation, and thinks carefully about how everything will hold together.

And the more I’ve reflected on it, the more I realize that joy works much the same way.

Sometimes we discover it.

But often we have to build it.

Right now the world feels loud and unsettled in many ways. There is no shortage of opinions, arguments, or reasons to feel discouraged about the direction things are going. It can be very easy to get pulled into that current, spending our energy reacting to things we cannot change or proving a point that doesn’t actually bring more peace into our lives.

I’ve felt that pull myself.

And I’ve noticed what happens when I stay there too long. My attention narrows. My patience thins. The natural sense of lightness that usually bubbles up in me begins to fade.

Joy doesn’t disappear all at once.

It just quietly loses ground.

That realization has been important for me, because it reminds me that joy is not something that survives on autopilot. It grows in the environments we intentionally create around ourselves.

The things we choose to focus on.

The conversations we participate in.

The energy we bring into a room.

The small moments we allow ourselves to notice.

A conversation that turns unexpectedly warm.

A moment of laughter during an ordinary workday.

A walk down a familiar street where the light suddenly catches something in a beautiful way.

Joy rarely arrives with fireworks. More often it shows up quietly, woven into the texture of everyday life. But it becomes much easier to see when we begin intentionally creating space for it.

That is the shift that has been happening inside me.

For a long time I thought my role was simply to point toward joy — to notice it, talk about it, and encourage others to see it too.

But lately I’ve realized something deeper.

I want to be a Joy Architect, not just someone who talks about joy, but someone who actively builds it.

First in my own life.

In the way I choose where to place my attention. In the way I shape my days. In the kind of atmosphere I help create around me.

Because the strongest foundations always start there.

And when joy is intentionally built into the structure of our lives, something interesting happens. It begins to spread outward naturally. People feel it. They respond to it. They carry a little of it with them into the rest of their day.

Not because someone lectured them about joy.

But because they experienced it.

So this realization is less of a grand declaration and more of a quiet commitment.

A reminder to myself that joy is not only something worth celebrating.

It is something worth designing into the structure of a life.

This space will be where I continue exploring these ideas. Stories about discovering joy in unexpected places. Reflections about building lives where joy has room to grow. Conversations with people whose journeys remind us that joy often appears where we least expect it.

If those ideas resonate with you, I hope you’ll join me here.

In joy,
Deronda Aiken
The Joy Ambassador and an architect of joy

Remember, joy is often waiting in the places we least expect it.
Keep discovering joy in unexpected places.

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