Daylilies, details and delight
Note 33: Marking goodness in each day
On June 1 I took a friend up on her invitation to come over one morning and work on an essay at her table while she did her own work. Sometimes the presence of another helps, and periodic chat offers something like a Pomodoro break. So I did.
Her husband greeted me when I walked through the open door, quickly followed by their almost-3-year-old. “What are you wearing?” she asked me. We had spent time four days earlier, and her only comment on my clothing then was to observe, with toddler humor, that I was wearing socks with sandals.
I repeated the question and looked down. “I’m wearing a T-shirt, and cargo shorts,” I said, touching the front and side pockets, “and I’m wearing socks and sandals again.” The grownups wanted to know if they were homemade socks. They are! Made by a friend who has a sock side gig! I praised them, and then the little one reminded me, “Socks don’t go with sandals. You wear feet with sandals, and socks with shoes.” Some people do wear socks with sandals, I said again, and then the mom and I strategized a coffee plan while I unpacked laptop and notebook onto at the table and the dad and daughter got ready to get groceries.
This morning, while washing dishes and cleaning in the kitchen, I listened to This American Life’s latest podcast, on delight. Part of it included a guest host talking with Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights, which was my favorite book I read whatever year I read it (2019? 2020?). He gave himself a project, beginning on his birthday one year: every day for a year, he would look for something delightful and write about it. The result is 102 tiny essays, flash nonfictions, many just one or two pages long, about common and yet wonderful things that happen. Over time there are threads crossweaving through. It was a delightful read, and a delightful show to listen to while leveling a mountain of dishes. It always makes me want to take on some year-long project too. And, like gratitude lists, it can prompt the reader (or listener) to be on the lookout for delight.
Later, after the shoppers returned and my seat at the table put my T-shirt at toddler eye level, she started studying its outdoorsy drawing. “I like the leaves on your T-shirt,” she said, pointing to some. I looked down. “Thank you. It has pointy leaves, like the needles on a pine tree, and other leaves, like on a deciduous tree. And a bird —”
“And it has a staaar … and the suuuun …” she said, touching both, as we took turns naming.
“Yes! And see these heart-shaped leaves?”
It’s been a long time since I hung out with a small person, so I don’t even quite know the words to name that simple and surprising delight of an observant little soul studying my shirt, unselfconsciously pointing out different drawings on a canvas that happened to be worn instead of on a wall or in a book. I think maybe her “What are you wearing?” was a deeper question than I realized.
So that was a delight on June 1. On June 2, walking down to check the mail, I looked outside and saw — woohoo! — an orange daylily in a clump by the door, and the pale shriveled curl of one from the day before. I moved here in a June and have tried to note the first day of bloom ever since then. (Are there flowers that thrill you when they start to appear? Last year I got obsessed with noticing forsythia everywhere, one of the many yellows of early spring. This year it was dandelions.)
On Saturday, June 3, an evening walk, spotting a very still rabbit in a yard near the gate I was heading for. Another rabbit farther on looked back for its friend. It was almost like a relay handoff: once I got still, they bounded off, but for a moment there, we all shared a stillness. Also, I got to explain the hospitable “Pittsburgh left” custom to a new neighbor, which deserves its own story eventually.
Sunday, I can think of several: singing “Be Thou My Vision” in company and then walking home and … wafting from the open windows of the church next door, different voices, same song. And, oh joy, finding a temporarily missing debit card in the little basket where the keys and laundry cards go.
Once upon a time, as some of you may remember, “Daylilies” was my shorthand for a practice of sharing a gratitude list every day. This is not a yearlong or 100-day or even one-month project declaration, but listening to that podcast about the subject of delight made me want to name a few in this new month when spring will turn to summer.
Current delights:
Reading — The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, and Holy Land, poems by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
Eating — cara cara oranges and black cherries
Wearing — Stockingfoot Knits socks with Birkenstocks
Seeing, alone and yet not — the stunning full moon a few nights ago, and knowing from social media that people in Texas and Massachusetts and Arkansas and other parts of eastern PA also saw it and wanted to tell someone.
Have a lovely week. What’s delighting you wherever you are these days?
This is deserving of the too many exclamation points that are frowned upon by the punctuation police!!!!!
My current delights:
Reading—The Screwtape Letters. I read all or parts of it every year.
Eating—Honeydew melon
Wearing—Wide-leg, loose, linen pants that have a drawstring at the waist. Loose britches and “granny” panties are delightfully comfortable.
Hearing—My husband’s snoring. He’s still here.
And FaceTime with my 5 yr.old granddaughter during which she makes a “pretend” YouTube cooking video. Do you know muffins are baked for 30, 60, or 100 minutes?
"You wear feet with sandals." Oh, that. So fun. :) And, yes, the question of a child being more than the question at first suggests.
Delight: reading this from Laura Lynn Brown. :)