Book Reviews Blog: When I fall into the doldrums, which seem to come with pandemics and loneliness for family, friends and travel beyond the supermarket, I pick up The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (Algonquin Books 2019). My friend, Jill, gave it to me on a depressing birthday, the pandemic one. She knew it would lift my spirits.
The book of delights is a collection of lyrical essays written by poet, Ross Gay. Gay decided to notice small joys, those often over-looked in our busy lives. He planned to keep a record of them for one year, starting and ending with his birthday. The essays range from funny, poetic and delightful to more serious pieces about the complexities, sometimes terror, of living in America as a black man. Many of the essays celebrate the natural world. He concludes with his discovery that we can and should stake out a space in our lives for delight.
We are familiar with the concept of gratitude, taking time to count our blessings. Delight is different. Delight strikes awe, makes you laugh, or astonishes. It comes upon you suddenly. Sometimes it is there, hidden, and you could easily pass it by, unaware. Often, you have to search for delight. It can be habit-forming.
I was enthralled with this little book and decided to dive into my own project of delights. My birthday is in May and I discovered it is easy to find delights in spring and summer and even autumn. Nature, itself, is ready to offer up delights. I began to think of myself as swimming in delights so was fooled into taking them for granted. The seasons of delight do not train us well to search for delights that are less obvious.
Winter and pandemic isolation set in after the holidays, and I spent two months trying to get through it. In mid-February I re-stacked books on the little table that invites me to read in the afternoon. There it was, The Book of Delights, on the bottom of the stack. I revisited it and decided to search for delights for seven days in dreary February. I discovered something. Here are my delights; then my discovery.
Day 1. The sun came out after two, maybe three weeks of miserable weather – cold, raining, bleak to the bone. So I went for a walk and friends were popping out on sidewalks like poppies, spreading delights here and there. All I had to do was hold out my basket.
Day 2. I've gotten lazy in retirement, sleeping until the sun scratches my eyes. Missing one of the delights I had forgotten, until by chance, today, I woke at dawn. So still. So quiet. And then –Bird Song! I crept to the kitchen on its serenade and savored a most delicious, steaming cup of dark roasted coffee. Two delights, even before breakfast.
Day 3. The cashier at Food Lyon packed my shopping bags so thoughtfully that nothing was battered and bruised when I arrived home. No bag of onions on top of the sandwich bread. No wet products sucking the labels off instructions I might need. Such a delight. Next time I'll look for her and get in her line, no matter how long, and this time I will notice her name tag, and tell her thank you for packing some delight into my day.
Day 4. Gunilla, a Swedish friend and artist, popped up on Facebook. We had been close friends for the four years our families lived in Bolivia, almost 30 years ago. I do not do this social media thing, she wrote, but I joined in order to find you. And with those words, I can suddenly see our cascade of children tumbling down her steps in a Christmas pageant, with all the streamers and Scandinavian delicacies she concocted, in the theatrical worlds she invented, and which we entered as if in a dream. Oh, what a delight, to remember. What a delight to find my long lost friend.
Day 5. It's 4 PM and no delight anywhere; believe me I looked. The painters finished yesterday and today my husband and I put back the furnishings in the front rooms. We polished the old wooden floors, oiled the furniture, dusted and hung the art, ironed the hand-loomed silk window scarves and unrolled the beautiful Tibetan carpets. I felt grateful and blessed to own such lovely objects, but that is not delight. Delight slips up on you. Exhausted and hungry, I cut off the end of a crusty baguette, still warm from the bakery. I spread it with butter and topped it with a chunk of two-year aged Dutch gouda. Plopped down in my favorite chair and ate it slowly in four bites. Delight!
Day 6. I'm a college basket-ball fan widow. Good excuse for a girl's night out, socially-distanced and masked, of course. A risky delight in the time of COVID.
Day 7. Today I made chicken 'n pastry and fried lace cornbread, food that speaks of comfort and family history. My mother was a great cook but never allowed me in the kitchen. She was fast, focused and discouraged interruptions. It was her space. Growing up, I only learned to cook toast. Finally, when I was about 50, she slowed down enough to teach me the steps to make this silky, buttery chicken dish balanced with the crunch of cornbread fried so thin that it thinks itself lace. I now have a living memory of my mother and grandmother that I can stir up and savor anytime, and pass on to my children. A pot of delight.
Ross Gay wrote that it didn't take him long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing about daily delights "occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study."
I enjoyed collecting delights so much that I decided not to stop. It's like searching for four-leaf clovers. Where you least expect it, there they are, day after day. My Covid-19 vaccine has been scheduled and I am beginning to see light at the end of this long, dark pandemic.
Things are looking up, but I'll take this lesson forward: If I get into the habit of collecting delights, even in the good times, they can light up the dark when I need it.
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