A Delight List
Delight is, as you know, one of my core values—you’ve heard me say a million times at least that I want to be a person who is easily delighted, who lives with an extremely low bar for delight. I want to be flooded with joy by a perfectly ripe peach, heart-bursting with happiness at the sound of my kids’ laughter, dazzled by the sky at dusk.
I’ve written about delight as a core value here and also here, and I really do believe delight is a flywheel: the more you seek to be delighted, the more delight you’ll experience. You’ll start to see and hear and taste delightful things all throughout your day.
Lately I’ve been keeping a little delight list, and I cannot recommend the practice highly enough. My list will be different than yours, of course—they should be personal, according to your loves, your memories, your corner of the world. Delight is deeply sense-connected, so it springs from what you smell and taste and touch in your world, and what I smell and taste and touch in mine. The practice of writing this list has become a delight in and of itself for me, and I hope it sparks something in you, too…
A completely non-exhaustive list of things that have delighted me recently:
This painting:
WOW, right? You know I love all things blue-and-white striped, and also reading in bed, and also sunsets on the water…is this every part of my actual dream life captured in one painting?! The artist is Frances Featherstone, and every time I look at it something inside me leaps.
The smell of hot dogs at a baseball game.
How my sons’ faces look with just a little bit of summer sun on their cheeks and noses.
The pimento cheese from the Southerner—it has a bright kick of horseradish, and I love it so much.
When you take a little risk and say I love you to a friend for the first time and they say it back.
Learning the meaning of a new phrase: CROWN SHY. I’d heard the phrase a handful of times but didn’t know what it meant, and when I finally looked it up, it made me so happy: crown shy is when trees that are growing next to each other don’t overlap their branches as they grow taller, but instead they allow each other to grow side by side. That’s why sometimes when you look up, you see those perfect edges, sky peeking through, a little lacy distance between one tree’s branches and the next…isn’t that gorgeous? And also, metaphors abound, right? I want to be a person who is crown shy—who intentionally makes space for the people around me to grow and stretch and get lots of good light and nourishment. I’m delighted by this concept, and this one is a double-delight: the word nerd in me loves learning a new phrase and usage.
The smell of rain on the sidewalk.
Silly texts and inside jokes.
Watermelon with tajin.
Making pancakes with the boys: for whatever reason, I never buy Bisquick, and we never make pancakes, but when a neighbor moved out recently, she left us—among other things—a box of Bisquick. And as we settle into the lazy days of summer, the boys have been entranced by this box of Bisquick and the promise of pancakes whenever their hearts so desire. William mixes up the batter, Henry does the pouring of the batter into the hot pan and some really expert flipping, and I rummage around for various topping options—current go-to’s are strawberries and blackberries, Nutella, maple syrup, honey, and powdered sugar. Sometimes we eat them straight out of the pan, dipping them into all the toppings while we bump into each other in the kitchen, and sometimes William sets the coffee table in an extremely fancy way, and we sit down to eat like veritable kings. (Thanks, Christa!)
Rambler Sparkling Water: I mean, I love LaCroix (pamplemousse forever!), and I’m crazy about the aggressively bubbly cult-classic that is Topo Chico, but now I have a new favorite to add to the list. We discovered these at Isabel’s, a fancy little market in Saugatuck, and I am HOOKED. I wish I had one right now.
Reading outside in the evening.
Frilly toothpicks.
Cotton pajamas: Is there anything better on a hot summer night than showering off all the hot-city-stickiness of the day and then putting on clean, crisp cotton pajamas? I prefer mine to be old-grandpa style, navy with white piping.
Oysters, always.
A walk along the river with an old friend on a hot night.
Finding my favorite hair clip after it had been lost for ages (of course it was in a kitchen drawer).
Walking by his office and hearing Aaron play the piano when he doesn’t know I’m listening—soundtrack of my life, basically.
Wearing sandals.
The smell of Rockaway Beach by DS & Durga—my favorite summer fragrance. Super briny, almost like algae or seaweed, in a very good way. Like instant teleportation to the sea.
Derry Girls, especially Rock the Boat (iykyk!), and also the final episode when Orla dances through the city listening to her Walkman…pure delight!
The sound of the boys laughing together.
A very big man and his very small dog--there’s a guy in our neighborhood who must be six-six with massively wide shoulders, and he has a teeny tiny fluffy little dog that walks next to him, no leash, and the man just chats to the dog all day long while they stroll around the neighborhood. It makes me smile every time.
When the wind swirls and ruffles the leaves just for a minute on a hot still night.
Ice cream for dinner.
Reading a great novel in bed, favorite candle lit on the nightstand.
That feeling of good-tired legs the morning after a long-walking day in the city.
Okay, that’s my list…and here’s what I want you to do: start keeping your own little delight list, in a journal or in a note on your phone or in a stack of index cards on your nightstand--whatever works for you.
I promise you’ll find what I’ve found: that delight is possible, just waiting for us to discover it. That it changes us, and that it fuels us, and that it makes the unbearable a little less so. Delight is its own reward.
Here’s to finding delight in even the most ordinary places. XO--S