Sh*t To Help You Show Up May 19, 2023
The answer is delight
Gender-affirming care for trans kids is now illegal in Texas. Interest rates remain painfully high. The GOP is playing Russian roulette with the debt ceiling. Mentally ill people are getting choked out by vigilantes on the New York subway. A middle school-aged trans boy in my super crunchy, Upstate college town committed suicide last week due to bullying.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of women all over the U.S. have to travel outside their states to access full reproductive healthcare, and it feels like every day we get news of another mass shooting somewhere.
It’s hard not to feel that sitting here writing about practicing integrity is like spitting on a forest fire. Like standing in front of a wild stampede with nothing but one of those handheld stop signs that elementary school crossing guards carry.
But what else am I going to do? What are we going to do? Give up? I vote no.
The question then becomes, how do we keep going in the face of it all?
I believe we keep going, in part, by noticing and sharing our delights. Delight is an entirely subjective experience, admittedly, so to share delight entails vulnerability. If I share what fills my heart with unexpected gladness with you, will you “yuck my yum”? Will you judge me for being silly, juvenile, or weird… or will you delight in my delight? This is a question of integrity, I think. How we hold other people’s joy.
To share our delights is not distracting ourselves from the world, but reminding ourselves that in the face of all the horror and meanness and greed and violence, there is also kindness, creativity, laughter, dancing, and wildflowers.
So, please, allow me to share some of my recent delights with you. If you want to return the favor in the comments, I would sure appreciate it. Links, quotes, jokes, random thoughts. If it surprises and captivates you I want to hear about it.
Denise, Heaven’s receptionist
Denise, Heaven’s receptionist, might be one of the best things I’ve encountered in ages. She’s a character created by 2022’s Miss New York, Taryn Smith, on TikTok. She smacks her gum, rattles her iced coffee, and tells the truth. I love her.
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I don’t even believe in heaven, honestly, but if I’m wrong, please let Denise be waiting there for each of us.
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Lovely Day
Nadia Bolz-Weber writes one of my favorite newsletters on Substack, The Corners. Even though we don’t share beliefs, her faith and humanity move me. This week she posted a wonderful, resource-heavy, public newsletter on Happiness Hacks, which I encourage you to check out, and included this video of the late, great Bill Withers:
Not only is it impossible (IMPOSSIBLE!) not to smile when you hear this song, his backup dancers take me right back to high school. The hair! The outfits! I thought about them for hours after watching this, chuckling ruefully all the while.
Everything is Amazing
If you’re at all like me, it can be hard to find the time to do anything anymore that seems “pointless”. There’s always so much to get done; productivity can feel non-negotiable. But, honestly, that’s just oppressive nonsense. It’s exactly what the powers-that-be want us to think because it keeps us on the hamster wheel— alternately working our tails off or indulging in grade-A, capitalist-approved indulgent avoidance.
Instead, we could eschew that seesaw of insanity and remember the beautiful, puttering, pointlessness of hobbies. We could even go on a quest! Just for fun. If you don’t understand what I mean, read this wonderful edition of the Everything is Amazing newsletter. And then subscribe, while you’re at it.
Even if you aren’t inspired to head off on a pointless, random adventure immediately upon finishing, listening to Mike reading his newsletter to you will make you happy. It certainly makes me happy.
Look outside!
Finally, I will leave you with this, because my lawn is a disaster and I just don’t have time to care. Even if I did, though, I’d probably let the dandelions run riot over it anyway. Dandelions and I get each other:
I once saw a cluster of dandelions bursting through the pavement in the parking lot of the Seattle train station. My delight was so instantaneous and consuming that I carried it inside my heart for fourteen years. Then I got those dandelions tattooed on me so I could carry my delight on the outside. [Look at that baby! I wasn’t even yet forty in this picture!]
I suspect if you’re here then doing the right thing really matters to you. This is fantastic and I am with you, but we can’t take life too seriously in the process. Down that road lies a joyless madness.
So, let’s not go that way. Instead, tell me:
What delighted you this week?
Previously…
One year ago:
Sh*t To Help You Show Up May 20, 2022
I think of myself as someone without regrets. If regret is that sinking feeling that the present would be better if I hadn’t chosen X or done Y then, perhaps, I don’t feel regret because I like the present moment (for all of its imperfections) more than I ever imagined possible. But if regret is also knowing that I did or said things that were out of my…
Two years ago:
Wild Thing
When I was four or five years old I slashed my brother’s throat with a steak knife. I can’t have been more than four or five because I still lived in the small room at the top of the stairs that had no door, but I was young enough to be happily entertained playing by myself inside a cardboard box. Which was exactly what I was doing when my brother appear…
Yesterday I was sweeping up lots of green apricots that had dropped from my tree. When I was just about finished, two more plopped down from the tree. I laughed! It reminded me of the apple trees in The Wizard of Oz throwing apples at Dorothy and her friends. My apricot tree has a sense of humor. It doesn't take much to delight and entertain me so I am often delighted and entertained. It's a great way to live and I heartily recommend it to you!
Thank you for asking the question! Going to a garage sale and finding 2 new pairs of shoes that not only fit me but looks great and we’re a total of $5. Plus going to three greenhouses this week and planting flowers and herbs. Being with my mom. Those are the delights this week.