Today is my birthday (whoo!)
Birthdays deserve their own red carpet moment. A custom-tailored, roll-out-the-velvet deal. How you spin your red carpet bash, though, that's your business. Could be low-key. Maybe just you standing on a weirdly fuzzy bathmat, toothbrush in hand, pondering the mysterious ways of your face. Or maybe you're gunning for the full-blown Academy Awards spectacle. Sure, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but who cares? Your birthday, your rules. Unleash the madness, deck out in whatever zany, glitter-bomb gown or suit you want.
Today is not a big, flashy milestone birthday, the kind that makes a grand entrance with a 5 or 0 trailing behind it. Even so, I feel a certain lack, a certain smallness to this one that I have already vowed to boot. Here I am, already scheming about my red carpet 366 days from now: a carnival of delights and basking and absolutely no icebreakers.
Let's cut through the birthday cake and the balloons for a sec. Ross Gay's dropping some heavy wisdom up there in those words, the kind that makes you stop and stare into your confetti-strewn coffee.
Maybe it's fate or my usual dumb luck that I found Ross Gay's The Book of Delights just when fixing the world seemed like the kind of wild goose chase where the geese are always one honk ahead. The book kicks off on his birthday, pondering delights great and small. It’s probably fair to say that it's an extended gratitude journal, jam-packed with charming, profound essays that sometimes wade into the less sparkly parts of existence. And also, it’s probably fair to say the book is not a simple extended gratitude journal of deep descriptions of big and small things that bring him (and by extension us) delight. Although some things that bring him delight are as straightforward as a punch in the nose, the book usse that as a starting point, bobbing and weaving as needed to some truth or another. It dives headfirst into a tangle of delight versus joy or sorrow, and sometimes inextricable from each. It is a series of skipsteps into his own history, his connectedness with community, and nature, and occasionally with something hardwired into our DNA. Delight is in connection.
It is a master class in connection.
It is also funny as hell.
The Book of Delights is a writing prompt. A living prompt. An inspiration.
It is what I’m going to try for a year or forever or maybe just a couple of weeks like that exercise routine. No, not that one. Ok, yes, that one. And that other one. Oh shut up.
For many of us, snagging moments of delight has been like trying to catch smoke with a squash racket. The moments feel forced, or they're tiny, mewling little things, or they're bittersweet at best. And hey, that's all part of the human carnival, nothing wrong there. But maybe we – I – can try this, too.
I'm gearing up to dive into something that's maybe not quite delight, but is definitely, maybe a second cousin. To chase down fleeting moments and see what story they want to tell. To embark on a treasure hunt where the treasure is little internal bursts. No, wait, that’s Pop Rocks. Whatever.
I'm probably not wired for a book of delights that does not quickly turn wry, self-deprecating, or cynical. I mean, sure, I could churn out a daily dose of sarcasm or whip up a regular roast of yours truly, but let's be real — who's gonna line up for that parade?
But I can do daily delight which skates along the edges of amusement, maybe teeters into bemusement, mixed with a healthy dose of self-chopping humor to let the air out of my own overinflated tires. Might share some of these nuggets, might not. Might stick to this better than my grand plans for a daily journal — because, as a wise friend pointed out, there are only so many words you can squeeze out each day. And hey, I'm already wrestling with a book here, which, by the way, is a genuine slice of delight.
And on the days inevitable and more frequent than I would like, when the world goes full beast mode on me, on all of us, my reaction, is hardly delight. It is more like “Can you believe this shit?” I have to hope at that moment, I will remember to zoom in as small as necessary. To use that search for hope as a grappling hook, flinging it into the chaos to snag me some shred of delight. Because I'm thinking, that's the whole freakin' point.
In other words, Can I find delight in a leaf-blowing army? Unlikely. But I can find delight in my crapitude or something tied enough to leaf blowing that the whole thing collapses upon itself.
I know also so many of you will feature in one way, or another in my delight, that I may or may not share here. Don't worry I will protect your identity, so that when it is my next birthday, we can delight together.
Here's the plan: every month, I'll dish out a tale or two from this delight-scope of mine. And, if the stars align, I'll toss in a rundown of all the things that cranked up my joy-o-meter since the last time I checked in.
What I’m saying is that today is my birthday.
And what if that is also joy?
Roll out the magic carpet.
Happy Birthday 🎂
Happy birthday! And I love this book so much, I listen to little bits of the audiobook at lunch on days that feel grim.