The Book of Delights

A few months ago, Gay cut down a tree in his backyard and chopped it into firewood. He hates felling trees because they are homes to so many creatures. He feels bad about that, and even worse when his partner looks out the window, visualizing the non-existent garden Gay had promised and instead sees the large pile of brush. When Gay bought this house in Indiana, his mother tried to persuade him to grow his grass so the neighbors wouldn’t burn his house down. Gay imagines that this fear was fueled by her experience being married to a Black man in the early 1970s, but knows he is in no danger, despite the Confederate flag hanging in the window of the house three doors down.

Instead, he thinks he’ll buy a woodchipper and turn the remains of the tree into mulch, which can be used for gardening. As he retrieves wood from the pile for their fireplace, Gay hears all sorts of chirping and sees nearly 100 birds playing in the brush pile, like a large communal nest. He is delighted that he got a chance to hear their song and realizes he never would have heard it if he “had his shit more together” (106).

In this essay, Gay observes a photo of Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, and Neil Gorsuch. Though the men posed to smile, they look like they are frowning. Gay recalls the internet phenomenon of Grumpy Cat and says that though none of these frowns are as extreme as Grumpy Cat, Mitch McConnell looks like his penis is in a vice. McConnell looks alarmed while the other two are just smiling/frowning. He wants to assign a reason to each of their expressions but wants to resist paranoia and instead sticks to simply observing that when these men smile, they also frown.

In this essay, Gay remarks that everyone says stupid things, but nothing is quite as stupid as a quote on the inside an elevator of a hotel, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, which says, “The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years” (110). Gay delights in the fact that this hotel, the Thomas Jefferson Embassy Suites, is bringing together two African American poets, which Jefferson wouldn’t have thought possible. Gay finds the quote silly because lounging in bed is one of the great delights of life, and he thinks the quote is increasingly ridiculous because Jefferson likely wrote it while drinking tea he did not brew, writing from an inkwell he did not fill, and eating a breakfast he did not cook, because he was an enslaver of 600 people who were likely working long before he was.

In this essay, Gay’s friend Ingrid is showing him the picture of a peacock that landed in her yard. Gay looks at the color of the bird’s neck and marvels at the iridescence. He records Ingrid’s excitement to show him the picture, how she smiles at him as he looks at the photo, and how he smiles at her as she looks at the photo. He considers sharing the things one loves to be a form of ethics.

Once, Gay was sitting on the porch of a café that shared a porch with a pawn shop. An employee of the pawn shop told Gay that he wasn’t scared of Gay but was afraid Gay would scare away their customers, so he needed to leave the porch. Gay was sitting beneath a flickering “WE BUY GOLD” sign in the window. Now, years later, the café has expanded and taken over the pawn shop. He looks at the porch where he was told to leave. It’s not their porch anymore.

In a security line at the airport, the awkward security guard comments that Gay’s socks have roses on them. He then escorts Gay to a not-so-private room made of Plexiglas to search Gay’s groin area, which Gay calls a “not-quite hand job” (114). While patting Gay down, they talk, and Gay says he is flying to Syracuse to read poems. The man perks up and says he was taken to read poems once. As they return to the security checkpoint, the man rattled on about long and short lines, but Gay is more concerned about reaching his gate. As he walks away, the security guard tells his coworker that Gay is headed to Syracuse to read palms.

While on the Amtrak, Gay observes how people leave their valuables unattended for long periods of time. He thinks about this ongoing exercise of trust in the goodness of people, or the coffee shop phenomenon of asking one’s neighbor to watch one’s bag. Instead of theorizing how people aren’t bad to each other, Gay focuses on how each person is in a constant state of caregiving, whether by holding the door open, stopping at a car accident, or helping someone lift a heavy bag.

As Gay walks through Washington Square Park, he notices a man feeding a pigeon. The bird sits on his shoulder eating from the man’s hand which he holds close to his face. Gay looks at the motion of the bird and the man, thinking it resembles slow dancing. As he continues walking, a tufted titmouse flies by his head and lands on the fence by a young woman who pulls feed from her pocket. The bird leaps into her hand and starts eating as Gay gawks. The woman smiles at him as if to say, “We’re everywhere” (118).

As Gay drinks Kombucha from a glass that is reminiscent of the 1950s, he reflects on how his delights often incite afflictions. While he delights in kombucha as an adult, he would have been disgusted by it as a child, which he blames on his parent’s precarious economic status, which he blames on a system that requires such precariousness for politicians to afford mansions and good healthcare. He says a therapist he trusts is helping him disentangle guilt from pleasure, allowing him to delight in his comfort without feeling guilty for the discomfort others endure. For example, a perfect homemade brew of kombucha served in a mid-century modern glass from a time that centered on whiteness.

Gay and his friend meet to organize the new nut plantings for the community garden. Among the order is a batch of hickories, which will be in full production 200 to 250 years from now.

This essay talks about Gay’s annoyances and the delight he finds in quickly noticing his annoyance and calming himself down. He lists a few of his annoyances, like his partner leaving cabinet doors open, and personifies his annoyance as a being within him who never smiles and wears a crooked bowtie. The second delight he writes about is a conversation with Stephanie’s 15-year-old daughter who complains that something is annoying and only responds to Gay’s questions about why by saying, “Because it was annoying” and “because of the annoyingness” (123).

Gay laments about how music nowadays seems to rely more upon the attractiveness of the musician than their musical ability. He contrasts this with the band Toto, which is made of only averagely attractive men. The fashion worn by the band members reminds Gay of boys he grew up with, the ones who sat on the back of the bus and were considered “burnouts.” Now, he looks in magazines and sees attractive children who pass as musicians being used to sell merchandise and thinks, “We’re so fucked” (125).

Gay reflects on his reaction to a church sign, “Forbidden fruit creates many jams” (127). He did not think of jam meaning trouble or party but assumed it was a fundraiser selling jam, which betrays his disassociation from religion.

Looking out his window, Gay sees a man lying on the sidewalk by a desk left on the curb. Gay assumes the man is fiddling with the desk leg but cannot tell. This makes Gay study the act of laying down in public and he writes about how laying down in certain places, like a park, is acceptable, while laying down in other places is considered deviant. In the book A Pattern Language, the authors explore how creating public places to sleep contributes to a thriving town. Gay, personally, loves sleeping in public but realizes that as a cisgender man, he feels safer doing this than others would.

Gay recalls that some of his most fulfilling naps were taken in public, once while his friends were exploring Rome, and once while waiting on the keys to an apartment. As he reflects on this, he sees the man get up from the sidewalk, where he had apparently lain down to cuddle a Pomeranian dog Gay hadn’t been able to see earlier.

While on the airplane, Gay watches a toddler walk up and down the aisle of the plane, followed by its mother. The group of people in front of Gay, despite not speaking English, begin cooing at the baby and a man in the aisle seat even picks her up. As the toddler walks to the front of the airplane and back again, Gay is grateful that baby talk is a universal language and is reminded of the good in all people as everyone in the airplane laughs and waves at the toddler.