A little ‘dusty’ (read hungover) today, so I wanted to make sure I paid attention to some small joys. If you enjoy, read this. I’d recommend this as an exercise - spend a day noting down what delights you. You find yourself (in the words of the OG Ross Gay) developing ‘a kind of delight radar… the development of a delight muscle’, and realising quite how delight-dense the world is.
Glass. The boxes I use for my meal prep, bamboo lids, shhhhweeerkppmph as you push the seal down. The heft and seriousness of the glass, how they make my cooking sit up a little straighter, the colours of my inventively murdered vegetables jump a little brighter. The way they stack up by the fridge, plod, plod, plod, each another step as I learn to cook. That I am learning to cook (!) The pleasingness of chickpeas fitting just right into an ex-sauce jar, a handful left over for me. My makeshift carafe - a repurposed bottle of Absolut Vanilla Vodka. The contrast, aqua vs. aqua vitae, makes me smile.
Autumn. How my Swiss housemate knows what ‘scrumping’ is, even though she doesn’t know the word for ‘package’. Our industrial production of apple slodge. A red leaf this morning, tie-dyed, livid, dragoney, glorious. Another caught-between, greeney-yellow spring in the centre, dusty brown autumn outside. The long white tail of a hare. A museum turned violent pink in the sunset. Rust on the edge of leaves and yellow stone singing.
Kant. Rereading and returning back into his world and his web. Hours passing. Beauty as ‘the free play of the imagination’. As something that exists without concepts, the thoughts that we have that aren’t aimed at pinning anything down. Beauty as the moment when things seem so perfect, they have to have been designed - even if we are not sure how or what for. Beauty as ours and ours alone, a product of being caught between, animal and angel, the gap that allows us to be aware of what it feels like to approach something perfect. Beauty as set apart from doing or wanting or having.
Strangers. A man tossing a key out of a window for a girl three storeys down. Her red checked trousers. A sixty year old running this morning, almost sprinting, hobbeldy, lopsided and fast. An acquaintance commenting on how my hair was different, gesturing how it is normally in a bun. As he said it you could seem him wishing that he hadn’t, but it was so sweet he did. The niceness of being noticed.
Friends. A friend has found the perfect job-life-person fit, and I’m pleased. My aunt texting. ‘Oopsie-Doopsie’ (Swiss Oops). An unexpected, thoughtful email, received as I write this, that I opened a couple of minutes after sending, something that I know (but won’t believe) is simply chance.
Small satisfactions. Googly eyes drawn on the toaster that remind me of my brother. Finding the right casual shoes. Nice bras. Sleeping in the middle of the day because I needed to. Showering in the middle of the day because I wanted to. Bar soap, and how irrationally pleasing it is, the working up of a lather. Wearing life a little more lightly. Noticing myself noticing. An afternoon off. Bed at 8.
Oooh, you’re learning to cook!
This is so delightful! A new favourite