I'm Inviting You to Find Delight
I want to invite you to find delight. Every day.
I know, crazy right? I mean we can barely keep track of all the existential threats hovering right out there...so close we can practically touch them. Pandemic. Systemic racism. Rising fascism. Failing economy. Rising temperatures. Raging winds. Roaring climate fires.
Enough already!
And if you're anything like me if all just feels a bit---scratch that---TOTALLY overwhelming. And depressing.
How is anyone supposed to get out of bed each day? Believe me, I've asked myself that question more this year than in all the years before in my life.
And then the other day I was listening to the To the Best of Our Knowledge podcast (great show, you should listen to it, too) and I heard an interview with poet Ross Gay. (Here's the episode.) He wrote a book that came out last year called The Book of Delights. It's a book of about 90 essays that he wrote after inviting himself to find delight in every day.
Well sure, you're probably saying, that was last year. Who's going to find delight right now when our world is a freaking disaster and normal life is a distant memory?
I know you're saying that because that's exactly what I was saying to my car (I was driving) while listening to Ross talk about the book. I almost turned it off. (I mean, who has time for joy when the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Do we have the energy for delight? Really?) But, to be honest, he was so sweet and engaging and charming and wise...that I had to keep listening. And then, in response to the question, "And at the same time the planet is burning, species are dying, there is gun violence and inequality and suffering everywhere. How can we sit around and talk about how great joy is?" [Clearly, this was a pre-pandemic interview!] he said this: I don't think one closes off the other. In some way, I feel like studying and attending to and sharing what you love is one of the ways of responding to what is brutal and what is awful.
And I said (again, to my car): Ah! Aha! Yes! We need to bring our attention and intention to finding delight and joy! We need to respond to the brutality with art journaling what we love!
And at that moment I decided to invite you to join me in finding delight. Right now. Every day. For as long as it takes.
So, here's the deal:
1. I'm going to read Ross Gay's book, The Book of Delights. (It's on Audible too and he's narrating it, so I may just do that!) And I invite you to do that, too.
2. I'm going to art journal my delight every day. Just a page. In a not too big journal. (If you don't have one on hand I recommend this one or this one or this one.) And, yes, rather than my usual focus of hand wringing and hair pulling, deep sighs and heavy hearts, I'm going to journal in this little journal about the joy I find in a day, in my life. What delights me. The taste of my mint tea. Or my cozy socks. This may be a sketch or some writing, some color or a collage. It's not about the product (you knew I'd say that, right?), it's about the process...of finding delight and then recording it in your art journal. I'm putting the focus on things that bring me delight because, god damn it, I am SICK of feeling the darkness as it encroaches. And if I'm going to make it out alive I have to hang on to the joy with everything I've got.
3. And I'm going to share my pages on Instagram and Facebook with the tags #artjournalofdelights, @creativity_midwife, #rossgay and #bookofdelights, and you can, too. Let's see how much delight we can find DESPITE the world crashing and burning around us.
Let's see about finding joy in the every day. Because we can and we should and this is gonna be a life saver, I promise.
