Simple Moments by Liv Boyer '22

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Simple Moments

Delight is defined simply as “great pleasure.” But the definition alone makes me wonder: is it intentionally vague? Or is the simplicity of the definition what makes it specific to visualize? Maybe the feeling needs no more than two words to describe it, or maybe the writer just got tired. This tiredness created a simplicity of definition, attempting to not involve greater thought. I find many of my delights in tasks that don’t involve the mind. I’m moving, but my mind is not. This allows me to feel free from my past and my future, and just be me in my own moment. I’ve gone on a nightly walk every evening without fail since 6th grade. I typically walk around my neighborhood, but sometimes I decide to wander. One day it is the forest, another it’s a random street, the next it’s just my driveway, up and down for hours. I have two favorite kinds of nights. The first is a warm one. Humid, just enough to have a thin layer of dampness on your skin for a breeze to wash over, leaving you feeling clean. I can hear the lush leaves on trees and bushes rustling as I write this, moving with the wind. The second is icy. Walking down a road in the night, but it’s still light out from the street lights reflecting off the suddenly bright surroundings. The streets are flooded with snow, a plow hasn’t come yet and there is a soft press under your feet from the imprint in the snow. Big flakes continue to fall carelessly from the sky, joining the rest on the earth’s floor. Moments like these create a different form of ecstasy in me. When I walk I forget about everything in my life. I become a truer form of myself; with no future, no past, only the present. Sometimes I delight in the idea of alternate realities, creating different personas for myself, having the “what if I was ___” moments. I could spend all my days making new stories for myself. But alas the sun rises faithfully, and thus I get pulled back into reality. I drive with the windows down no matter the weather. Winter is my favorite time of year to do this. There’s something indescribably risky about this, flushing ice through your body with every breath. Turning the heat on blast while having the windows down is an especially satisfying thing. Having icy air melt onto your skin the same time as warm, welcoming air pushes through the vents, thus you’re thrusted forward. What I mean by this is: the difference in temperature can propel you through space and time. The changing warmth and whipping of wind create a new reality, a single, silent, moment in time. Having the windows down is worth the price I’m willing to pay for this silent moment. For example, your hair flying around and getting caught in the stick of chapstick, which is infuriating, but feeling the wind rush over your skin and biting through your hair is well worth it. Basically what I’m getting at is that there’s nothing better than driving in a coat. I started running competitively for the first time in seventh grade, and ever since, it’s been yet another escape route from my mind. Running competitively pressures my mind and body in a way I don’t appreciate; running alone creates a sort of freedom embedded in pure human nature. Humans were built to move, to hunt, to be free. This allows me to base the pushing sensation of running in what I was built to do. The judgement of competing takes away from the freedom running brings. What I mean by this is the pressure of being compared and timed to others ruins the effect on my mind. I especially enjoy the feeling that’s almost as if you’re on the verge of passing out. Pure thoughtlessness by way of physical exertion. Your body needs to keep pushing on, but being alone takes all thinking away, and pushes that energy towards making the body move forward. You can feel, but you can’t comprehend. The wind you’ve created brushing through your hair, the pitter patter of your feet on the wet pavement with a little splash at the end, the way your shirt lightly presses against your stomach as you push forward. It’s all happening, but you’re lost in your own still snapshot of a second. Nothing exists but this moment, and that is truly a delight. I once had a realization that everything in the past and future doesn’t exist, it’s all a part of our inner dialogue. Centering yourself in the present moment is key to freedom, thus why all of these things add up to be my greatest delights. Delight for me is defined as freedom. Freedom from the mind, freedom from the body, and most importantly freedom from the past, or maybe from the self as a whole.