He's a writer, poet, gardener and the author of 'The Book Of Delights'. ROSS GAY: Yeah, my name is Ross Gay and, you know, I write (laughter).ĬALA: That's Ross Gay. Tell me your name and what it is that you do - or just how you would introduce yourself. I'm Christina Cala.ĬALA: Let's talk about delight, specifically delight in the every-day. And I have to be like, Let's go with love.This is NPR's LIFE KIT. I'll say, 'Say something that you love, that you realize you loved in the last week or so.' And not only is it difficult for people, it's amazing how quickly people turn the word 'love' into 'like': Oh, I like that. Once you've admitted that, you've also admitted that you're movable, which I think also is an admission that you have needs. I teach, and last year I started class off like this: 'Tell me something that was beautiful that you saw on the way to class.' And it can be really challenging for people to say it, because it feels vulnerable.

I've never seen anything as beautiful in my life that flower gives me a reason to be alive. And it feels like a profound sorrow when I am reluctant to say, I love this, I love this. It's tears, and it's shock and it's flabbergasting. You know, I grew up playing college football, and a lot of my training was about how to be unmovable.Ĭode Switch Author Helen Hoang Talks Sex, Autism And Freedomīut to be moved, it's all kinds of things.

I've wanted to imagine myself as a discrete creature that is not movable. I think for any number of reasons, I have wanted to participate in the brutal fantasy of not being movable. And I think one of the studies in the book is that to be moved is to be connected.

One of the projects of the book is allowing oneself to be moved. There is a lot of freedom in that: in finding something delightful, taking time with it and sharing that joy. And I think it offers this roadmap of someone saying, it's OK to love things, and it's OK to feel joy. When I read your book this time, I really sat with what you were saying about wanting to be softer. I've been thinking about that as joy, but I'm also going to say I think maybe that was an experience of freedom. There were all the potlucks, all the arguments, all the going to get limestone, all the talking about what kind of trees there were going to be. I was just so filled up, and I was so profoundly indebted to these people - and it's a lot of people. And I can just remember it plain as day, when I was leaving that day, my eyes were welled up.

The book of delights by ross gay