Today I am Writing: On the Loss of Delight

There's suicide in the news today. (There's suicide in somebody's news, every day.)

On Monday I played with a pre-verbal child. We went for a walk. We found pine cones. Not because I thought "she will like the pine cones," but because every time she saw one, she bent her whole body down, extended all of her energy out through her scrunched up mouth, her hands on her knees as she looked-up-close, her hands on the ground as she reached. Squeals and peals of unfestered delight.

On Tuesday I fought and fought to keep at my desk and I lost.

On Wednesday I sat with my friend who said, Have you ever seen a child at play? That sound of delight? That child doesn't care who hears. [That child could be you, is what he meant.]

On Thursday my hands hovered over piano keys. I was supposed to be writing, but there was Granados, calling. I was learning the lines, the inner workings of the things. I set out to work on it, but in the end I found myself, just playing around. The keys under my fingers, the sounds in my ears. I stopped thinking. I let myself delight. The delight did the work on its own. [I can play it better, now.]

On Friday I chased my demons away, I went out and played. I took with me my creativity book, the place I write when I just need to dump my mind out somewhere. I wrote,

How did we lose our delight?

How did we forget that delight was ours to keep?

There's suicide in the news today. (There's suicide in somebody's news, every day.)