Halfway across the Millennium Bridge she stops and asks me to take her photo. The day is fading fast and she wants evidence that she was here in this moment, as night falls over the city, smiling from ear to ear. She has been promised this trip for weeks - a belated birthday present is a night out in the West End to see a musical. She doesn't even try to contain her excitement. She fizzes and sparks like a Catherine Wheel.
As the old year faded and this new one began, I chose the word Joy to carry me forward. I needed more of it in my life and wondered where to find it. There on that bridge, trying to frame her bright little face in the dark window of my phone, I realise its been right in front of me all this time. Even her name affirms it, a name we chose for her because of the joy she brought us at the end of a year foreshadowed with pain. As I take her picture, I see how perfectly positioned she is between the dark shilouette of Tower Bridge in the distance and the brilliantly illuminated Shard in the foreground. She stands like a link between the old and the new, the dark shadows of the past and the bright promise of the future.
Picture taken, we move on. She never stands still for more than a minute. She's unimpressed by the installations in Tate Modern, every moment of her life is art to her and she needs to be living it. We leave and walk along the Thames and back across Blackfriars Bridge, pointing out landmarks as we go; St. Paul's, Big Ben, the OXO tower, the London Eye. Her eyes are wide open, not wanting to miss anything. We eat in a busy Italian restaurant close to the theatre and she asks us the time every few minutes. She eats quickly, declaring it to be the best food she's ever tasted when in truth it's a mediocre plate of sausage and chips. Joy makes even the ordinary seem extraordinary.
Finally we're at the theatre and she tells the lady who checks our tickets that she is soooo excited. The show is everything she hoped it would be. We give her the aisle seat because we know her feet will be dancing, every part of her straining towards the stage, itching to be up there singing her heart out too. As we walk back to the station afterwards, she asks me how she might go about auditioning!
The trains are packed with people heading home and we sway as we stand, her arms wrapped tight around me. She tells me she loves me and I ask her if she's tired and she shakes her head vehemently although it's nearly midnight and she's been up since the first hint of day. She politely refuses the kindness of strangers who offer up their seats. She holds on to me to keep us both upright. I see that now - how beautiful a gift she has been to me, joy for a heart bent towards melancholy. I remember once when she was very little, how she looked hard at me for a moment and then asked me why my smile was upside down. She sows seeds of happiness wherever she goes. Even there late at night on the underground when January couldn't be more joyless, she hears a young couple talking in Mandarin and gives them her widest smile as she tries out the little Mandarin she knows. They turn to her in surprise and can't help but smile back and ask her her name. She tells them and it echoes down the train like a bell pealing...
