The Labor of Delight

On the gentle work of paying attention.

Last weekend, I celebrated ten years at a cabin in the Poconos with a group of psychedelic enthusiasts. I was there for a retreat with the Psychedelic Access Fund, a nonprofit I’ve been working with to provide psychedelic-assisted therapy to people who can’t afford it. 

The irony of me spending my sober-versary with a bunch of people advocating for wider access to psychedelics is not lost on me. It’s part of a larger healing journey I’ll write about eventually but for now, I’ll say my relationship to recovery is…nuanced.  

I’d been planning the retreat for weeks, but as the weekend approached, I secretly prayed for a surprise bout of Covid, or some other legitimate excuse to back out. I had a final paper to wrap up. I didn’t want to risk missing my favorite Sunday meeting on my anniversary. The retreat included 10 people I barely knew which is approximately 9 more people than I am acclimated to sharing close quarters with. I love the mountains but am deeply suspicious of organized group activities. All those summers at church camp.

I had my doubts, but I climbed into my friend’s Ford pickup anyway, Trader Joe’s road snacks in tow. Within 30 minutes of leaving the city, my chest eased. We dug our hands into oversized bags of trail mix and coconut chips until we’d both spoiled dinner, gabbed nonstop about the winding paths to quieting our clattering brains and then paused, mid-conversation, to watch Camelback Mountain crest over the interstate. I was reminded of what I love most about the road—long swaths of uninterrupted time, swapping stories with somebody new. Discovering you both listened to cringe Christian soft-rock as teens. I often get caught up in the idea that my life should be filled with grand, sweeping gestures. I forget that joy isn’t necessarily in those moments. It’s in the shared sighs and peanut dust.   

We arrived at the Airbnb that evening to curry on the stove, a feast of groceries piled onto the kitchen counter. Folks were milling about the cabin, unpacking instruments and claiming bunks. We were a motley crew: An accountant, a science journalist, a music therapist, and a Rabbi-in-training. It reads like a joke.

At sundown, we lit a fire and the Rabbi ushered in Shabbat with prayers and tea lights. We shared intentions. Mine was something about undoing aloneness. I’d decided what the weekend would be for me before leaving, which was that it would not be good, and I realized I had to let that go in service of whatever it was going to be. Then I grabbed a guitar and we sat around the fire pit, singing the shit out of the Goo Goo Dolls.

It was funny. They were funny. 

I woke up the first morning to the fireplace crackling and somebody else tinkering in the kitchen, cooking breakfast for the lot of us. There are few sounds as satisfying as this.  

We’d planned on using the retreat to map out our big, sweeping plans for the future, but that didn’t happen. Life intervened: Checkout was hours earlier than anticipated, a hike lasted two hours too long. Instead, we had these moments of shared connection.

At the end of the retreat, the music therapist whisked me down to the West Village just in time for my favorite gay men's recovery meeting, followed by raspberry donuts and coffee with my sponsor. I took my pup for a long run and spent the afternoon polishing off my last paper. Ate dinner outside with a dear friend. All of the things that kept me on the dry side of a drink for previous 3,654 days. This day was no different.

I am a schemer and a storyteller. I spend a lot of time in my head, arranging the narrative as I expect it’ll unfold. Sometimes it’s hopeful, sometimes not. I think I know which arrangement of cards will make me happy. Then God cackles and shuffles the deck. 

Ten years ago, I set out to remove the things that dulled my capacity to feel. In the beginning that was alcohol. Then it was food, and debt, and 1,001 other iterations of avoidance. Now, my task is different. Now it’s putting the idea of how things are supposed to be down. And then looking up.

Sobriety, to me, has become about calibrating my attention. Not toward some mysterious future six months from now, but this day right in front of me. Making myself available to it.

One of my favorite poets, Ross Gay, published a collection years ago called The Book of Delights. Every day for a year, Gay wrote a short essay about a moment that brought him joy. The victory of whipping a group of 12-year olds at pickup basketball, the surprise joy of carrying a tomato plant through an airport. He turned those essays into a book.

I want my life to be that book. Yes, I want sweeping gestures, dramatic intrigue. Whatever grief comes with it because to have joy you need both. But I am learning more and more that to experience life as good requires paying close attention. To the dew on the porch railing when I step outside for my morning run. To the precision with which a science journalist arranges a solar system of fried eggs, cherry tomatoes, and feta cheese onto my breakfast place. 

This week, I do not have a grand, sweeping story for you. What I do have is a simple offering; a series of moments from last weekend that brought me delight. Each one of them proved my assumptions wrong. When the noise in my head lifted like fog off a lake, so I could see clearly the thing directly in front of me. And then hold it without grasping, without it needing to remain forever. 

I call this work “the labor of delight.” It’s a practice. Of making enough room in your life for the difficult things, and the good ones. To hold them alongside each other. To do this is a deliberate act. 

Like walking my pup without my cell phone, without headphones, on a day I am brokenhearted or worried or overbooked. A yellow handkerchief for her, a brightly-hued lipstick for me.

Here are the moments that brought me back to myself:

• Journaling and meditating on Harmony Lake. Losing my breath and then returning to it, over, and over

• Opening the fridge to discover a bunch of psychonauts packed five different kinds of nut milk, two cases of kombucha, and not a single drop of alcohol

• Walking among the tall trees and feeling small 

• A surprise sauna

• The secret thrill of sneaking away during an organized group activity to do fuckall on my bunk because I am an adult now and can do whatever I want, including opting out of organized group activities 

• Ringing in midnight on my anniversary, sipping lavender chamomile tea at the kitchen table with a new friend

• The deep pleasure of returning from a weekend away to a clean apartment

• Sharing a heaping plate of scallops and mushroom grits with my friend Tim, who adores me even when I am messy and unsure of everything but the grits 

• Sitting in a recovery meeting surrounded by stunningly attractive gay men who do not have the answers, only questions and coldbrew

• Rolling in the grass with my pup

Our days are made up of a series of moments, cobbled together, a story that we string together in our heads and call a life. I’ve had so many of these moments, each day, even when it’s difficult—especially when it’s difficult. The trick is that I have to look up long enough to notice. This is the work. It is a gentle labor, but a worthwhile one.

This is my list of delights. What’s on yours?

Aly

Me and Casino, doing what we do best