Naomi Weisman is a Canadian-Australian and mother of three who loves to Ramble with her dog, cook for family and friends, and laugh whenever possible.
I know I’ve talked about JJ Grey before, but I feel compelled to again.
Life has been topsy-turvy lately. The last six months have carried more emotional weight than usual. It’s been a time of quiet reckoning—of reflecting on what I want for the rest of my life, and, just as importantly, what I don’t want.
Clarity rarely arrives all at once. It comes in fragments. In questions. In long walks. In conversations. And sometimes, unexpectedly, it arrives in the middle of a concert in a small town an hour from home.
I have seen JJ Grey and Mofro in concert many times over the years. Twice here in Toronto, and several times in the United States during various road trips with Brian. His music has always felt less like performance and more like communion—raw, honest, and deeply human.
A few weeks ago, Brian noticed that JJ would be making a rare appearance up here in the frozen North. One night only. A small venue. The kind of opportunity you don’t overthink.
Even though I am deep in preparations for my annual trip to Australia, and even though my life feels very full right now, we couldn’t say no.
And thank goodness we didn’t.
Somewhere between songs, JJ began to talk—not as a performer, but as a person. He spoke about joy. Not in the abstract, but in the way it actually lives inside a human life.
He said that he doesn’t seek joy in any one specific thing. Instead, he imagines himself as a tiny speck in this vast, incomprehensible universe. And in that realization, he feels something profound: gratitude. Gratitude simply to be here at all. To be part of whatever this is.
He described closing his eyes while listening to music, or while hearing someone tell a story, and allowing himself to be fully present in that moment—not trying to hold onto it, not trying to analyze it, but simply experiencing it.
To him, that is joy.
Not possession. Not achievement. Not permanence.
Presence.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since.
Most people who know me would probably describe me as a joyful person. I laugh easily. I love deeply. I tell people how much they mean to me. Joy has always been close to the surface.
But lately, I’ve had to dig a little deeper to find it.
Life, in its unpredictability, has a way of clouding the obvious. Responsibilities accumulate. Emotional burdens settle quietly onto our shoulders. And before we realize it, we are moving through our days more out of obligation than wonder.
What JJ reminded me of that night is that joy isn’t something we chase. It isn’t waiting for us at the finish line of some future achievement. It exists in the smallest possible spaces—in a song, in a shared glance, in the simple miracle of being here at all.
Joy doesn’t require certainty. It doesn’t require ease.
It only requires presence.
Standing there in that small concert hall, surrounded by strangers who somehow didn’t feel like strangers, I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me. For those few minutes, nothing else existed. Not my to-do list. Not my worries. Not the unanswered questions about the future.
Just that moment.
Just gratitude.
Just joy.
And I realized something important.
Joy had never actually left me.
I had momentarily forgotten where to look.
**For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of listening to JJ, here is a wonderful playlist
READ MORE > Her Story, Rambler Cafe Blog
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