Lessons in delight
How two artists left me objects of delight and bouquets of friendship
Welcome! I am delighted to be here. This community has brought me such pleasure since discovering it. I’ve found stacks of generosity and thoughtfulness and genuine care for readers. It’s a respite from the noise of the internet beyond.
I want to return the favour, and I beg your patience as I jump in with my own contributions. I have spent the first half of 2023 learning new technology, setting up new systems and experimenting with social media tools. I am, frankly, a little exhausted, but this place looks like a good place to slow down and return to intentionality.
I am a writer, yes, and an editor and book coach, but first and foremost, I am a reader. I want to make the case for books. THE BOOK CASE will be a place to share my recent reading insights, my book coaching how-to’s and offers. This will be issued monthly, or at most, bimonthly.
Subscribers can also expect a weekly or biweekly list, my 3 Small Items of Great Delight. It’s a result of my goal to, as you will read below, practise delight. It was taught to me by two artists who shared their delights with me. I hope will lead me (and maybe you) to a mindset focused on discovery.
I believe in the power of community to build a promising future. Few people have such power they can influence it on their own. I feel most optimistic about the future when I am exchanging ideas and experiences with others. That’s why I’m here: to offer small contributions to larger discussions, and to offer reminders of lightness.
There is no paid subscription option at this time.
So pleased to meet you all! I welcome your comments and reflections.
—Dinah
PS. Below, you’ll find my first issue of 3 Items of Great Delight. (Be forewarned: It arrives with a rather long preamble, but I want you to meet the friends who inspired me.)
Last year, I lost two friends to death. Death came for them before the rest of us were ready to let them go, and so I have been lingering on the lessons they left me.
As I think about what this Substack will be, I turn to those lessons for inspiration. One of them speaks loudest now: Delight.
Delight was what they brought me, and this is what they taught me:
Delight is to be shared.
Delight is to be offered in friendship.
Delight is to be centred and made into art.
And so I’ve committed to share 3 Small Items of Great Delight here biweekly or weekly, with my first installment below.
But first, let me introduce you to my friends. Both were artists. Of course.
Ray Laporte was artist for decades before I met him in 2003. It was my first week as editor-publisher at Open Minds Quarterly, and there was a celebration for the outgoing editor, Barb. Ray had created a wire sculpture for her and presented it at a meeting of members at Northern Initiative for Social Action, the organization out of which OMQ was published.
NISA was housed in an old building on the grounds of the old psych hospital. Our building had housed young TB patients decades before, and it hadn’t been updated since; my office had a two-way observation window. The floors tilted in places, allowing sunshine to creep through the cracks beneath the baseboards. On summer days, we would open the doors at each end of the hallway seeking a breeze; squirrels would sprint through, happy for a shortcut between trees.
That day, after Barb’s tearful thanks and goodbye, Ray pulled out of his pockets a bag of walnuts. Dropping them on the table, he announced the introduction of The First Annual Walnut Awards and, with great enthusiasm, he proceeded to give out ‘awards’ for the nuttiest of reasons. Everyone present won a Walnut Award that day.
It was zany and silly and astute and kind. Ray was a showman in the best way when he felt good.
I won the Walnut Award for Doing New Things.
Over the next two decades I saw Ray nearly every week and we became friends. I saw many facets of him. We hooted with laughter some days (there was an incident with a 6-foot toilet plunger that still cracks me up), raged against unfairness on others, and sat in despair when he couldn’t raise his own spirit much less the spirit of others.
He was a true friend. Someone who would lift you up and tell you how much you were worth. He’d help you believe you deserved what you had, and he banished imposter syndrome with a few words. He didn’t ignore the difficult days. If I complained of something terrible, he would agree. Yes, you’re right, it is terrible. He met people where they were at and didn’t dismiss their experience. He knew the affront of dismissal. Personhood was important. You deserved to feel like you mattered.
Right now, more than three years since I saw him last, I am still surrounded by reminders of Ray. See, he regularly delivered delight to his friends. It arrived hand-delivered, unexpected.
Delight one day arrived as a polka-dot scarf, because Ray believed polka-dots made people smile. He had asked a friend to sew polka-dot scarves, which he bestowed upon friends on a random Wednesday.
Another day, delight arrived as a colour photocopy of a chickadee, because (don’t you know?) chickadees bring joy in the middle of a long winter. That’s why Ray trudged over snowbanks to the local print shop and got chickadee prints made.
Delight was a pine cone, re-imagined as a turtle. Delight was a ‘cereal killer’ Halloween costume. It was a cushion he made with your face imprinted on the front. Delight was taking every opportunity to do The Twist at our annual Christmas dance. It was a poem, or a cartoon rendering of a fun weekend at camp — everyone there was depicted as a moose.
Delight was inspiration for his art.
*
Heather Dana Munroe was an artist, too. With only a pen and paper, she rendered life into whimsical illustrations. She whipped simple craft materials into gifts from the heart. She played with words until a poem erupted. She never let any opportunity for a pun slip by.
I met Heather when she arrived at a job interview to be my editorial assistant. It was a cold day in Ottawa and snow boots were recommended. I had walked into the lobby of the office to greet my next interview only to find the candidate bent over, unlacing her big Sorel boots. Heather was dressed to impress, and as she rose to find me in front of her, dangling her business pumps in one hand and a boot in another, she also rose to the (awkward) occasion. She laughed, stuck out a hip, kicked out a foot, and said, “Boots or shoes?”
Aplomb. That is how she handled it. With aplomb. I was thrilled.
I knew I wanted to hire her on the spot. Thankfully, she aced the interview.
Heather made herself indispensable. She produced spots drawings — on the spot — when we had an empty corner in the magazine layout. She delivered copy with impeccable grammar. And her lexicon was vast; I was challenged to use precise vocabulary when I was around her.
She, too, brought delight. On her first day of work, she arrived with chocolate chip cookies for everyone, but soon we saw her generosity delivered in the media she loved best: in pen-and-ink, in watercolour pencils, in paper and glue.
Like Ray, she was a keen observer, and nothing passed her by. She read my face in a moment and noticed tiny details everywhere. I have, framed, a drawing of myself at 27, where she captured in detail the piles of paper on my desk, the way I cradled the phone between my ear and neck, and how one of my shoes dangled off my foot.
I’ve received from her paintings and unexpected fridge magnets with her trademark style.
Heather passed away last fall. I suppose she knew it was coming — it was a long battle to survive disease — but she didn’t tell us how soon she might go. Instead, she shared her latest delights with us in her Facebook posts — the stories and images that piqued her curiosity or elicited wonder.
*
Both Ray and Heather passed into the next realm in 2022. I grieved deeply, unfamiliar with the loss of friends. Today, I still wait for Heather’s snappy quips in response to my posts on Facebook, but they don’t come. Last year, on a road trip with my family, nearly seven months after Ray’s death, an Elton John song cut me down in seconds, the loss of my friend once again keen and terrible.
I miss celebrating with them their delights. I grieve the loss of their worldviews.
We are told that people live on as long as we remember them. At a funeral once, a minister reminded me that people live longer in our actions, when we carry forward the best of our loved ones in our daily lives.
I asked myself recently, What of Ray and Heather can I bring back to life?
Their art lives on. I have mementos throughout my home. The polka-dot scarf is draped over my office chair, Ray’s art is on the walls, a clay magnet by Heather is on my fridge, and I unearth her handmade Christmas cards from my box of tree ornaments each December.
Expressing delight is a small act of bravery. It asks you to be vulnerable. It asks you to speak up from your soul, sometimes when no one else dares to. You need to be prepared for judgement, knowing that sharing your delight is worth far more than any negative reaction.
Ray and Heather practised awareness. They paid attention. Neither overlooked the smallest moments or details. Sometimes their attention resulted in humour — wicked humour from Ray, punny quips from Heather — but just as frequently their delights were transmuted into art.
That’s how I will keep them alive. I will practise delight. I will bring my attention to the delights of the day, and share it.
That’s why, weekly, I will share my 3 Small Items of Great Delight. I want all of you to join in too. Add your delights. Let’s build a mountain of them. Strew delight in the paths of others so they can’t help but trip over them. Let’s surround ourselves with delights like trinkets.
3 Small Items of Great Delight
My delights this week are about relationships, and how we stay together when there is so much to keep us apart.
1. Humming a tune
My son and I made three batches of brownies for a bake sale. He is eleven and he loves baking, especially without a recipe. He’s a proficient cook, too. But last week we were following a recipe and he had to resist the temptation to experiment — this was not the time, I insisted.
It had been a fractious week for the two of us. We are similar in temperament. By this, I mean we both have a short temper when someone gets in the way of our plans, and we were each getting in the way of the other last week. But that night we baked together and returned to peace.
My son hummed the entire time, a cheery ditty repeated over and over. We were happy to be working together, cooperative.
My mom hums. When I hear her hum, I am reminded of childhood and feeling at home. I think she hums out of contentment, and sometimes for concentration. It’s calming.
2. Two trees, one life
I have lived most of my life now in my small town. I left, I returned, and the years have added up. The thing is, when you live in the same place, its delights become hidden. You walk the same streets over and over and it looks the same. Nothing surprises you.
Except I did discover something new. Two trees, sharing one life.
You don’t see it until spring. It looks like one tree. A pretty silhouette in front of the big, yellow church. But, in spring, the crabapple blossoms erupt in great joy and you see the truth of it: there are two trees here, twined together, one half with pink blossoms and one with white. Two species, sharing the ground, enjoying it, in fact. And every once in a while, they tell us about it in the prettiest way.
I’d venture to say it’s a godly reminder of peace, set as it is on the church grounds.
3. Fire ban campfires
Canada is on fire. This past month has seen terrible forest fires. Smoke is billowing across the continent. People are landing in emergency departments affected by the air pollution and all of us have seen the grim photos of the New York skyline bathed in orange haze.
This past weekend, my cousins and I gathered at a cottage resort for a weekend together. We planned to talk long into the night around a campfire. The strict — and completely reasonable — fire ban nixed that plan. (The mosquitoes tried their best, too.)
But ingenuity danced in, and we had our campfire circle.
It looks like a fire, doesn’t it? And sparks! But look again.
With two strings of Christmas lights and a chair, our “fire” was lit. We leaned in towards the light, told stories and laughed long into the night. The fireflies approved, and they danced in, too, hovering in the trees above us.
Your turn
What delights did you encounter this week? Share your discoveries in the comments. Tell me what makes you exclaim, “Oh! Look at that!”
This is lovely, Dinah. What a tribute to your companions. 💜