small delights

A friend (thanks R!) hipped me to Ross Gay’s Book of Delights, which is what it says on the tin.

It is full of charming morsels by a charming writer as he observers his own proclivity for delight. This is a useful life skill. I’m lingering over it a few morsels to start most days (already renewed once from the International District Library – the library itself, the physical place, a delight, and the act of renewing, also a delight).

For the last week I’ve been dodging a pink hollyhock growing, weed-style, along the walk next to my bike sheds.

We went through a hollyhock phase in our garden, but got sick of them. They were much like Keith Moon’s drumming for us – endearingly over the top in a joyful way, but like Moon they eventually outlasted their “best used by” date and dropped off our garden playlist.

Now they occasionally pop up on their own, one at a time here and there, small because they don’t get much water, they’re less Keith Moon and more Charlie Watts, if you know what I mean.

The location of the pink one is a bit inconvenient, requiring me to steer the bike to one side while walking to the other as I wheel in and out the side yard.

It delights me every time.