72 DELIGHTS

A one-year collection of people, places, things and occurrances that make an old guy happy.

On a plane ride home from Costa Rica a couple a year ago I listened to a This American Life podcast about Ross Gay and his collection of essays called The Book of Delights. (Listen to that show here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/692/the-show-of-delights) Mr. Gay compiled 102 essays during one birthday-to-birthday year of his life. His project fascinated me, so I bought and read the book when I got home. This blog is loosely based on his idea. It’s also a re-boot of my similar effort in 2023 called ‘70 Fun Things @ 70’ — which got bogged down with some overambitious posts from a trip to Europe and ultimately fizzled. I learned that the key is to write and post about ‘delights” when you notice them and not get back-logged with half-baked ideas that you want to post in polished, perfected form. Some posts will be very short, others larger.

The inspiration of Ross Gay’s book is still with me, so I’m going to give it another shot. I’m starting this one on my 72nd birthday with a goal of posting 72 things that delight me in the next 365 days. Sounds easy, right? We’ll see how it goes. As I write this, it’s noon on my birthday. I’m optimistic . . . so far.