Читать книгу 365 Simple Pleasures - Susannah Seton - Страница 7

I’ve been thinking and writing about simple pleasures for six years now, scouring old-fashioned crafts and recipe collections, hounding friends and family for ideas. What I’ve come to see is that in these mechanistic, commercial times, much joy can be found in reviving some of the traditions that our mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers practiced in their homes in the name of necessity. Women in previous generations made their own bread, candles, and lotions because they had to; we in the twenty-first century have more choices about everything, and many of us are discovering that the choice to make a rosemary wreath rather than buy one or to make a batch of crackers from scratch is downright rejuvenating in some wonderfully fundamental way. Using our hands to make something—a homemade toss pillow, a jar of pickles—can be extremely pleasurable in and of itself—and that’s not counting the pleasure to be derived from sharing it with others!

What you hold in your hands right now is 365 of these timeless pleasures—the little things that can make such a big difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us. They represent not only my ideas and stories, but those of hundreds of other folks as well. Not all these suggestions will appeal to you. Pleasure is extremely idiosyncratic; one person’s delight might be another person’s nightmare. But I hope you will find enough to bring you joy throughout the entire year.

Think of these offerings as a huge flower mart in which you get to wander, picking exactly the flowers you want to bring into your home to give you maximum delight. The idea is to enjoy yourself and to bring enjoyment to others, not to lay a guilt trip on yourself about how you should be more creative or take better care of yourself. In this, at least, if in no other corner of your life, it’s all about savoring the simple beauty of being alive in the world.

—Susannah Seton