Small delights

[sonia]

Back in the '90s during a particularly hard year, I clung to a page-a-day Far Side calendar I had in my cubicle at work. Every day, at least one good thing happened - I got to peel off a page and read a new comic. On Mondays, I got to do it 3 times!

I look back and wince. Younger-me was hurting so much, and struggling so hard to get through.

These days, I have a lot more to appreciate, including not sitting in a cubicle 40+ hours/week. Some of the quality of clinging is the same, though. Sometimes the fall leaves delight me, and sometimes I tell myself they should delight me.

In the Untangling class they talked about using those small moments of delight and sensory pleasure to support self-in-presence, to nourish us for the hard struggles with our tangles. I think looking at colorful trees with gritted teeth is still better than not noticing at all, and at the same time it would be nice to be able to relax into genuine delight.

I've reflexively clung to nature and beauty (and page-a-day calendars) since I was small. It's good to get reinforcement for that, an external voice saying, yes, going for a walk is valid and important and a good use of time.

Something shifted for me in the last year or two around clinging to things, though. I've started giving away beautiful things I own that no longer bring me delight, or that have been stored away in drawers since I bought them. Spaciousness has its own delight, and it feels good to send things out into the world where they can delight someone else.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Sometimes the fall leaves delight me, and sometimes I tell myself they should delight me.

I hear you; sometimes we have an expectation for our own feelings that our feelings don't oblige ourselves by producing.

[sonia]

Yeah... sometimes delight just isn't one of the available options.