Simple Pleasures

Note — I truly appreciate all the new subscribers and folks who checked out my last post. I will do my best to not make this endeavor a complete waste of time — and just have it be a partial waste of time.

You all don’t really need a lengthy preamble here, right? We all understand what simple pleasures are. This is a well understood part of life, I assume. I just thought this felt like a time to dive in and list five of my personal favorite simple pleasures. This topic was on my mind this morning, for reasons we will cover eventually. These are in no particular order.

• Scented candles. If you asked me 15 years ago which item on this list would most shock me, scented candles would certainly be the winner. I was never a person that gave much thought to candles. The closest I came to caring about candles as a younger person was my ownership of a very large basketball candle that someone gave me (apologies for not remembering who). I toted that thing around with me all through college and from apartment to apartment for much of my 20s before losing track of it at some point. I had a few friends who were obsessed with the idea of lighting it and seeing how long it would take to burn all the way down — though I think it probably would have just hollowed out in the middle like a weird basketball fish bowl. Anyway, I never expected to be delighted by scented candles, but here we are. Anytime I’m at a generic department store — a Target, a Marshalls, or even the local hardware store (shoutout RW Hines in Cheshire) I am always tempted to buy another candle. And I often acquiesce. I don’t burn them a lot, but when I do, I am pleased.

• Kids sleeping in. One of my friends recently remarked — as the only person on a particular text thread that does not have kids — “you guys really make feel like I’m missing out by not being a parent.” He was being sarcastic. Because of that, i’m making a (half-hearted) concerted effort to not complain or make jokes about my kids being terrible. Still, having a few minutes to collect myself in the morning before the chaos ensues is outstanding. It’s one of the reasons I get mad at myself when I don’t heed my alarm and get out of bed promptly, because I’m narrowing the window of time to enjoy my coffee, and possibly talk with my wife. Maybe chip away at that New York Times Crossword I almost certainly won’t finish. So when the kids sleep a little later than normal, or at least sleep right up until the moment they should be getting up, that is a cause for celebration. I think I managed to make it through that without being too insulting to my kids.

• Good pillows/the right pillow. I’m 43 years old, and I have no idea what kind of pillows I like. Firm. Fluffy. Oversized. Some combination. I’ve bounced around, tried many different thing, but I cannot pinpoint what I’m looking for when I go to sleep. I have this sense there are adults out there who are clearly on top of this stuff. “Oh, I need a nice goose down pillow with medium firmness because I sleep suspended in a cocoon of palm tree fronds” is what I imagine actual adults are talking about. I cannot say that. Sometimes the pillows I use feel like they are working. Sometimes they do not. I woke up this morning and felt the most definitely were not working as everything hurt, my neck was stiff, and I felt very off-kilter. Though my kids slept in, so that helped. Anyway, I used to sleep on my stomach, now I sleep on my side and I cannot permanently solve this pillow riddle. But those nights when it works, and everything feels correct when the head hits that pillow…that is the very essence of a simple pleasure.

• Jean fabric breakthroughs. Science is amazing. I transitioned from being primarily a sweatpants kid to a jeans kid in late elementary school. I recall the revelation being that jeans could actually be comfortable. But I’m quite certain these were not jeans that could be defined as stylish. They were loose jeans that accommodated my active recess habits. I feel like there has always been an understanding that for jeans to look “nice” or “trendy” they need to be a little bit stiff and, dare I say, uncomfortable. Now we have these clothing scientists (no idea if that’s a thing) out here inventing these stretchy fabrics that make the jeans look like the fashion forward pants of yore, but they feel oh so much better. I’m lounging on the couch in jeans as I type this, and I could not be more comfortable. We live in amazing times.

• When your brain solves a puzzle. The boys and I were out at dinner this past Sunday, and there was a woman a few tables away who looked incredible familiar to me — but I couldn’t figure out who it was. I assume most people know what happens now. It could be a person you recognize, or a song where you can’t remember the artist, or the name of something, or some obscure trivia you used to know. Whatever that thing is, it will keep popping into your head over the subsequent minutes, hours, or days until it is solved. At least that’s what my brain does, and I suspect this is pretty common behavior. Slowly but surely our brains try to solve this weird puzzle that has popped up out of nowhere, until we either solve it or finally convince ourselves to stop thinking about it. For me, it was three days later while I walked the aisle at the grocery store when I finally figured out who the person was and why I knew her. That feeling — when the brain finally connects the dots — is as good as any drug you can find. Well, maybe not any drug, I haven’t done a lot of drugs. It’s still a really good feeling.