Experiment 2 | Scribbling Joy

Following that introduction I turned my attention to The Book of Delights. The culmination of the author’s own experiment in writing “a daily essay about delight” shaped by four rules.

…write a delight every day for a year; begin and end on my birthday, August 1; draft them quickly; and write them by hand. The rules made it a discipline for me. A practice. Spend time thinking and writing about delight every day.

One of my favorite entries is Tomato On Board, which begins like this.

What you don’t know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane is that carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you almost like you’re carrying a baby. A quiet baby.

The story unfolds and tells of how a little tomato start, gifted by a friend and carried in its little four inch starter container, sparked smile filled conversation and connection with a variety of people.

A tomato plant.

With a broken stem at that.

Delightful.

(Pause.)

As Hannah and I continue our tending, and during this season pay attention to the machine of consumption that is built into the bedrock of this cultural moment, I find that an adaptation of Ross Gay’s original practice is deeply helpful and liberating for me.

Noticing and savoring the delight, the joy, that is present in each day — in the normal stuff, through the beauty of the world that shimmers and surprises, in exchanges I get to have with friends and strangers, in how words sound and the way the turn signal provides the perfect metronome and summons for a beat that’s just waiting to be performed on the steering wheel — provides a helpful dose of kryptonite to the forceful pull to get and consume more.

Abundance abounds. Joy abounds.

I’m learning to pay attention to its astonishing presence.

And this practice is a simple way of telling about that discovery.

So here it is.

1. Start the day with an anticipation of discovering the good, beautiful and joy inducing.

2. Keep a little notebook in your pocket (or your phone’s note app will do).

3. When you encounter something delightful, scribble it down.

4. Before you go to bed, simply review your encounters with joy.

5. Try this for one week, see what happens and tell someone about it. (And feel free to share it with me. I’d be happy to listen.)