What's already happened
On the start of the year, and small, collected delights. Plus, reading recommendations.
Thought it runs against my better (more cynical) judgment, I feel good about this year. People seem to be in a chipper mood, refreshed from the longness of 2023 and yet gentle on themselves as we start all over again.
I felt less reflective than usual over the holidays, and focused instead on savoring rare moments with loved ones. On a Caribbean cruise with my family, I stared at the hypnotizing ocean and marveled at brown boobies that flew and dove for food along the side of the ship as we neared Puerto Rico. In Old San Juan, I walked parallel to the sea at golden hour, my hair set aloft by the bathtub-warm breeze. When we reached the San Juan National Historic Site, my breath caught in my chest.
Dozens of kites darted across a golden sky and, beneath them, people lounged on a sprawling lawn set against ocean on both sides. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We cut across the grass, trying to avoid fishing line attached to the kites (and one poorly flown monkey-face kite that was rising and stabbing at the ground), and we moved toward the falling sun.
This was my first sunset of the year — risking grass stains on the butt of my white jeans so I could sit and sip the last of my Medalla by la Batería Santa Elena. I’ve caught at least five sunsets since, and at least a few similar moments of deep satisfaction. I’ve been collecting delights.
From my journal:
Saturday, around 11:35 a.m., a teen boy is hunched over his take-out burrito like he’s building a fire in a windy environment. Both elbows out, beachball position, gripping either side of the bundle, and diving in mouth-first. It’s his break; he’s a saxophonist in the jazz quintet that plays at the farmer’s market each week. He must be 17 or so, the age at which a boy can’t hold eye contact. And in this lull in the music, he’s devouring the $10 burrito from the vendor across the parking lot, before hopping up, adjusting his beige hoodie and finishing the set.
Friday, mid-afternoon, orange! The rarest of all naturally occurring colors. (Not true, it’s blue, but orange is pretty rare to just come across there. To look out your bedroom window, from which you’ve seen greens and dull yellows, grays and blacks and the occasional artificial blue of a piece of trash, and the real blue of the sky, and catch a view of bright orange orbs? Beyond.) Mandarins, which were recently lemons and limes before that. You were wrong each time but it’s OK. These delicacies floating between this home and that noisy neighbor’s. The one with the giant cafe au lait poodle, boisterous barker extraordinaire, owned by the equally annoying young-guy-with-buzzsaw, welding-shit-at-7-p-m-man.
The mandarins — unshared; this Loud Family will apparently eat 45 oranges before they go bad, since they’ve never offered you any — improve matters by a margin. Sure, the Machine Guy will continue to screech and brrrr and frEEEEEEEECK at times that any decent person would not. The poodle will remain glued to the fence line, derogatory and generally objectionable as a member of the neighborhood. But you, the person who in a hot fit filed the anonymous noise complaint (not even a name attached — coward!) as you cursed the Welder Guy and plotted the poodle’s timely demise, will get to savor and enjoy the glorious sight of oranges.
Recommendations
Reading: “Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr, recommended to me by my friend Sarah a year or two ago. It is very fiction-y fiction — great for getting lost in — with multiple separate story lines spread out across time (ranging from ancient Greece to the distant future). It’s all tied together by one strange, central work of theatre. What’s kept me reading are the immersive worlds, and two heart-nudging storylines.
Find “Cloud Cuckoo Land” and all other recommendations in the rummaging library.
Also reading:
Vox’s predictions for 2024.
A deep dive on Stanley cup chaos. When my partner asked, mid-cruise, if I’d heard about the white women camping outside of a Target for an overpriced cup, I wished to never return to land or cell signal.
New fiction by Marlowe Granados.
Liz Gilbert being funny and love-starved and figuring out grace. And Liz Gilbert being liberated by aging.
Meditations on the need for silence in nature.
Writing is about making choices. Ugh.
Eyeliner is so much more than makeup (I really want to read Zahra Hankir’s book).
Listening: Shine by Cleo Sol, which is nice and easy and reminds me of basking in the equatorial sun. And this Wine Bar playlist by Spotify.
Have a great week,
Isa