How & Why To Carve Out Time For Delight

In a ripple of delight…..I shared with my aunt my memories from my early school years of my father plucking off a camelia, wrapping the stem in a wet paper towel and giving it to me to give to my teacher at school. She loved the story and immediately gathered a selection of camelias and a pan of water. They were beautiful, but I was moving from one Airbnb to another. So instead of moving them, I gifted them. That night I wrapped the stem just as my father had and carried it with me to dinner at a restaurant and gave it to the hostess. And the next morning, the same for a hostess at a breakfast cafe. The flowers generated a lot of conversation along the way with other patrons while standing in line. Such is the power of a tiny delight.

I got tingles listening to this interview with Ross Gay, poet and author of The Book Of Delights.

In my work with clients and in my new course, Luscious AF, I advocate that we intentionally notice and lap up delight!

Our brains might be quick to protest, “I’ll think about delight when I have time.” But far from a frivolous “extra,” delight is an antidote to loneliness and the ultimate way to practice being fully present. So this has enormous implications on the journey of questioning alcohol.

If I’m present to the whimsy, playfulness, cheekiness, exuberance, rebellion and sweetness that can be inherent in everyday delights, I’m less likely to seek out those states via a liquid in a bottle.

I love one of the examples Ross Gay gives of a simple delight….his refusal to use a QR code to access a restaurant menu. With the physical menu, he knows that he and his buddy might move closer together to read it, or that the server might stand just next to them and lean in over their shoulder to point to the menu and explain an item.

I sometimes do best noticing delights when I’m alone as that is often when I can most feel present. And then delight fills my cup and fuels me by reminding me of all the myriad ways we are connected and part of something so much greater than ourselves. When we are filled and nourished, we’re less likely to need substances to “take the edge off.”

And, there are two big aspects to cultivating delight that I haven’t seen written about elsewhere. The first is that whether we are aware of it or not, we are always training our own brain about what to pay attention to. You can think of that system of the brain like a nightclub bouncer, deciding who gets in. The more we notice delights, and even highlight them by say, having a friend that you mutually text a photo of a daily or weekly delight - the more our brain will spot them. The second is that after years of drinking, our hedonic threshold (how much pleasure we get from things) has been altered by the over-stimulation of dopamine and the resultant pruning of dopamine receptors. A delight practice is a simple accessible way to stimulate a return to a balanced pleasure threshold.

While walking in Paris one day, I look up and notice on the side of the building some pixilated-looking tile images and consult the Internet to discover it is one of thousands of “hidden in plain site” art installations all over Paris by an anonymous artist called The Invader who is inspired by the early video games of his youth.

Paris is filled with them, but delights are anywhere you are, such as a tuft of grass that has managed to push through a thick block of asphalt, reminding you in an instant of the power of nature!

Back in Portland, on the northwest streets of Portland, you can still see the iron rings secured to the sidewalks that would have been used to tie up horses. So it was a delight one day to see that another subversive artist had “tied up” mini plastic horses along the avenue, where those that were paying attention might delight in them.

Who was up early and arranged a tower rocks (and how long did it take to create this seemingly impossible balance?!) so that I might discover them on the trail by the river and feel their presence and the delight they took in their creation that now connects us?

“Good Morrow,” the young bearded man with glasses said as he passed me on the sidewalk. Is that Shakespearean? Or Middle English? It happened years ago and I still remember with a smile this quirky, rebellious, conspiratorial greeting. I felt honored. He chose me to be in on his game…his game of creating a pause in the mundane to carve out the whimsical. Or to create a glitch in the matrix.

I delight in a small town parade, feeling gratitude for all the volunteers who gave up scores of hours just to “delight” others.

Delights come in all forms and they are personal. What brings us joy (new growth, nature, reunions, victory, etc) is likely more universal. What delights us on the other hand is quirky, fun and all YOU.

We might delight in things we’re nostalgic for, like address book, rotary phones, reticulating rulers, or photos that took weeks to get developed.

Or profound but fleeting moments like as having a conversation with a houseless man and his dog while sharing space for 30 minutes under an awning during a beautiful and violent rainstorm.

Email me or comment below and tell me about your recent, or long-remembered delights!