time for delight
Today I started reading Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights. In each of its essayettes, he explores something that is currently delighting him. He gave himself the challenge to write one delight entry per day for a year. I’m not even finished and I already highly recommend you read it because it is, as one might guess, delightful. His writing is infections and he weaves joy and pain and humor together in surprising and engaging ways. So please do read it if you get the chance.
prompt #12:
Today’s prompt is fully inspired by The Book of Delights. I’d like you to set that five-minute timer and then write about something that is delighting you today. You can use the format Gay does (essay or essayette), or you can explore other formats like poetry. It’s up to you and however the words are moving you today. Either way, though, I’d love to hear about what’s delighting you these days.
ashley’s piece:
There’s something luxurious about laying around on a sunny day, unaware of time, in your own little world. As an adult, the gift of an agenda-less day feels monumental, magical. The privilege of wasting away time, listening to the shifting leaves and chirping of birds, feels like time travelling. Suddenly I’m fourteen-ten-six again, and the world is slow and wide. Time isn’t present. I’m not crossing off the to-do list, I’m not counting down the hours, I’m just sitting and dozing and feeling the sun on my skin.
During this COVID time, I have a lot more of these lazy, languid afternoons. Part of the reason I chose a career in public education was to allow myself the freedom of summer every year, but this year it’s obviously different. Usually I’d be giving myself some project to begin, some new craft or business, or work to accomplish. Instead, sheltering at home, I’ve allowed the emptiness to stretch. I’ve let myself forget the watch, day after day.
And, though the world is in the midst of this much-needed upheaval, I’m also letting myself tap into that gift that capitalism usually denies. And trust, I know that it’s a wild privilege to be able to have this. It is not lost on me that this time is not available to all, but I’m trying to still accept it, enjoy it, embody it, because we have to be able to imagine how things could be otherwise. We have to be able to point to this thing, this space, and say that is good for a body, that is what more of us—all of us—should be able to have.
So I’m delighting in the breeze. I’m soaking up the time. I’m enjoying the quiet and the solitude and letting it remind me that we all deserve this.