Blueberry Joy

I sink a single canine into a ripe blueberry and it explodes in my mouth. I can practically see the stream of deep purple covering my tongue as the sweet and slightly tangy liquid infiltrates every crevice under my tongue and between my teeth. It is sudden and all consuming. I do not bother to think about its fleeting nature, how the goodness will soon leave my mouth forever. It does not matter. A content sigh escapes from my lips, barely audible, just as the rest of the noise in the world around me. In this moment nothing else matters besides the peace given to me wrapped in the shape of a blueberry. 

This is joy. 

I look over to my niece. There is not a sign of a single blueberry around her, yet her once caramel checks are now stained navy blue, as are her fingers, and forehead, and nose, and teeth as she smiles at me, almost as if aware of her treachery. She makes a sound that is probably fully appropriate to her but is lost on my non-infant ears, and then begins to bang on the table. I pull out a wet wipe and begin to go to town on erasing the stains, a seemingly impossible task made even more impossible with her incessant squirming. The sounds she makes now produce spit bubbles, some of which land on me, and seeing the bubbles remind me of her much needed bath. I know how it will go: she will scream bloody murder, pull my hair, kick my stomach, do everything within the capacity of her tiny body to avoid the torture that is warm water and a bit of soap, but all of that will subside once she is actually in the sink and trusts that my intent is not malicious. She will later turn those blueberries into something brown and smelly, retroactively making her bath useless. She will demand for more food but will not be so kind as to specify what she is in the mood for, so I will inevitably get it wrong and provoke more wailing. And then we will wind down and either watch a musically inclined troll go on an adventure or musically inclined lions defend their kingdom, and she will greedily drink the bottle she did not want in the first place, and she will burp and spit up on my shoulder, and maybe she will decide that I am of use to her and that we are friends and she will lay her head on my clean shoulder and doze off, or she will decide that I am public enemy number 1 and will fight with everything in her to be placed in someone else’s arms, and I will be tired, and fed up, and quite frankly, a little heartbroken. 

I think all of these things as I finish up cleaning the evidence of her blueberry crime scene. She is reaching up with hands opening and closing and looking up at me with pupils as big as, well, blueberries, and I know that in this moment she loves me more than anything. Which is a nice coincidence, given that I love her more than anything, regardless of the trials and tribulations I know that I am in for later. I pick her up and kiss her nose and make the same gargley bubble making noises she made, and she is visibly pleased. 

This is happiness.