Several years ago, well over a decade now, I read the book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Brethnach for the first time. A daybook, meant to be read over the course of a year, the simple ideas of contentment, gratitude, simplicity and order resonated deep within me, so much so that for several years it became a bit of an annual pilgrimage, the ideas and concepts resonating deeper with each reading. I've gifted several copies to various friends and family over the years, and as they are now easily found in used books stores (the original book, anyway, she's since release an updated version), I will often pick up a copy and tuck it away to be gifted once again.
This past autumn as I was organizing my library in my new craft room/office space, I realized that it had been a number of years since I had actually read through it myself, and so I set it aside and decided to revisit it in the new year. I'm not sure if it's because of the length of time, or simply the place I am currently in life, but reading through it again has felt much like reading it for the first time, the ideas and wisdom presented each day meeting me precisely at the point of my need. I've been journaling my way through it, making note of things that resonate with me,and I'm enjoying it so much I thought it might be fun to share some of the passages and my thoughts with you, here.
The reading for January 7, How Happy Are You Right Now?, instituted a little practice I've begun, keeping A List of Delights, a simple recording of all the little things I love and that make me happy. Inspired by a book the author mentioned, A Life of One's Own by *Joanna Field (which I purchased and read many years ago), which chronicles one woman's personal pursuit of all the things that a instilled a feeling of delight in her daily life. It was written, she confided, in the spirit of a detective who searches through the minutiae of the mundane in hopes of finding clues for what was missing from her life.
In reading this again I've found this practice particularly theraputic, with the state of our country and the world as it is, it's so easy to feel bogged down by the daily headlines, and I found that it was beginning to weigh on me more than I preferred. And while I can't do anything about the state of the world, I can shift my focus to happier more uplifting ideas and topics. As the author shares;
"We must learn to savor the small authentice moments that bring us contentment. Simple pleasures wating to be enjoyed, simple pleasures often overlooked."
Joanna Field discovered that she delighted in red shoes, good food, sudden bursts of laughter, reading in French, answering letters, loitering in a crowd at a fair and a new idea when first it is grasped.
In curating my own list, I've discovered that I delight in . . .
- The quiet hush that envelopes the world when it snows.
- Birds flitting about so joyful at our feeders.
- That feeling of peace that settles in when everyone returns home for the day, safe and sound.
- Tying my hair back with emerald or ruby red silk or velvet ribbons.
- The steady rhythms of cross-stitching and crocheting
- The distant sound of church bells, that if I'm still enough, I can hear every day from my front yard.
. . . just to name a few.
If you've never kept a List of Delights, I encourage you to give it a try, as the author admonishes,
"Let us consider our personal preferences and learn how to recognize, then embrace, those moments of happiness that are uniquely our own."
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Though the link to Simple Abundance will take you to my Amazon associate page, I encourage NOT to pay $26.00. There are used copies linked that are just a little over a dollar. I'm also quite certain that you can pick up a good used copy at your favorite thrift shop for a few dollars. If you've like to try it out before you buy, it's also available to read for free at the Internet Archives,
* Joanna Field was Marion Milner's pseudonym.
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