Support for this American life comes from better help online counseling, better help offers licensed counselors who specialize in issues including depression, stress and self-esteem. You can connect privately with a counselor through text chat, phone or video calls for a special offer visit. Better help Dotcom to sell. In these dark and confusing and combative times, with the pandemic still raging and mutating, basic facts not seeming to matter anymore, and every week more news, we think, is that really happening?

We thought here at our program we would try the most radical counterprogramming possible. So today, we're beginning a show about the light, the light, we first broadcast today's program just before the pandemic, but really it is the perfect kickoff to this new and hopefully brighter year. And our story starts with my co-worker being married me growing up in east London, in Nigeria, learning about America from afar.

I just remember the feeling of swimming in a lot of American culture. I watched a lot of sitcoms. I'd been watching Roseanne, I Dream of Jeannie, Family Matters.

It was a hodgepodge of Americana, a deep dive on Marilyn Monroe, but also the books of Maya Angelou and also The Cosby spinoff show A Different World.

And I remember kind of thing because there are so many different types of black people doing their own version of black people things.

And that was really interesting to me. But I knew they were problematic things about America.

Of course, you didn't know that.

But at the time I was like, yay, American pop culture, this is great. And I had such a fixed idea of America like a million high school movies and TV shows. I was like, oh yeah, I know. What if I was to land an American school today, I would know exactly what to do. I know the card I would fit in with.

It was going to be proms. It was going to be malls. I know where the cafeteria is. I understand that gym is a place of like hell. I understood everything around the idea of American school.

I had a whole vision of myself and where I would fit in the hierarchy.

Seriously, absolutely. I'd be like the, you know, semi middle class are on track at school. So I was like, you know, semi joke. But, you know, sounds as if there's a child, but also kind of like, you know, everybody's friend. Yeah. And I would be approachable by people who aren't as cool as me.

Like, I had a whole strategy planned out like that effectively. Picture your American high school.

I was going to be the everyman who was also very cool, you know, incredibly bright, very beautiful, very popular.

But, you know, wasn't conceited. It seemed a shame to waste all this knowledge that I had about how American society functions by me being in England, it was like, well, what good is all this knowledge here?

If you have the knowledge, then you want to be tested? I wanted to be tested. The only real test is to actually live in America, to live that life.

And so when she was 19, after high school and before college, that they don't call it high school and they don't call it college where she's from, she decided, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to take the test, live the dream, go live in America. In fact, not just any old part of America, but a quintessentially American corner of America.

And that's summer camp, summer camps, an institution that you really have in either of the countries where she'd spent her childhood, Nigeria and England. She was hired by a company that brings in teenagers from overseas to work as counselors. And she was assigned to a camp in a very British location just outside Santa Cruz, California.

We were amongst redwoods, like some of the most ancient, most majestic things ever on the earth, like they've seen in dinosaurs.

So we were between the redwoods and the ocean. And I was like, man, you just don't get visitors like this in East London. It felt like so American like to be in nature like this. We were sleeping in cabins and I was like, yeah, this is a camp. All right.

Back over and over, she found herself seeing and doing things that she'd only encountered in American pop culture.

Like, for instance, she ate in an old fashioned diner with round stools, round table and a waitress in a striped blouse who called her honey. There was the day that a guy in a grocery store aisle, a total stranger, hit on her, which had only seen on television, which apparently is not a thing British men do very much. And each time these things happened, it was exhilarating and surprising to one of the other counselors at Camp.

Laurel invited us all to her parents place on Lake Tahoe. So we drove down in her car, which was a white El Camino truck, and she told us his name was Chester. And I thought, that's Perfect's Chester Chester, the El Camino truck. Yes. At that point, I didn't know how to drive.

I still don't know how to drive because I lived in London and this fantastic tube and buses and whatever, and I walked everywhere, whatever.

I don't want to hear your British Isles chauvinism work and way of life. Oh, my God.

Anyway, we drove down to Tahoe and on the way, you know, we had the windows down.

We were playing loud music, were wearing jeans, cottle's. And I remember thinking, yes, again, this moment of like start class, I was like, oh, my God, this is America.

Like I'm in a truck or on the road. The wind is in our hair. This is perfect. We're a bunch of girls laughing about whatever. And it's great. Like it was a performance, but I knew all the words. So as you're playing the radio, are you singing along with the radio? Yes, classic road trips, though. And do you remember what song?

Oh, I do remember one song, Supergirl. That was a year that Norah Jones album Come Away With Me came out. I don't care what anyone says. That album is a banger I love. It's still Norah Jones. His voice is just perfect. And I remember the lead song.

I don't know why it was on the radio every single day and I remember us singing it. You know, the final bit was she kind of sings Mahasen something, something, whatever.

And then she says, this great line, you'll be on my mind. And I remember we would sing that and we put our hands to watch as we kind of like extend our arms and be like you be and we would all sing it.

You be. And it was just like this very romantic, very kind of like windswept, very it felt to me, again, like the perfect soundtrack to my American summer. America is real.

America is real. I was like, oh, my God, American things are happening to me. OK, so like I said at the beginning, our show today is about the light, and it was during that summer, Bembe says, because it was so full of moments of delight, she started to really take notice of that feeling and think of it as a thing, a thing that you liked. It wasn't just enjoyable. She thought that feeling seemed important somehow.

And I thought, OK, this feeling is something worth repeating. And the idea that you can go and look for delight and you might find it was, I think, fully planted that summer in you. In me? Yeah. Like if I actively sought out delights, I might be able to find it and replicate it forever. So I thought, OK, we'll just keep doing that. That was kind of like a way of organizing my life, by the way, very British way to organize her life.

Says to embrace delight wholeheartedly and unselfconsciously.

Fundamentally, I'm fighting against every urge me, which is kind of like, don't don't do that because I'm I'm still British. I can't help that. So I'm always just thinking to myself, just going, oh, is that too much? Like I feel I feel very much like somebody disapproving.

Narnia's, stop that. That's too much emotion. You know, there's a reason why our national sound is a htut.

That's it's an admonishment. It's like, stop it. You know, they used to be a talk show and the theme song was a little child singing this very singsong voice.

It'll never work. It'll never work. And that is how I feel about this thing.

That would never be a show here. But let's just talk about the sole voice and then all the other, like a chorus of voices, joy, it'll never work.

I don't remember it every time I see them like a ha. That is the spirit of Richard.

So there's this poet that I discovered a couple of years ago, he's called Ross Gay and he's written a book where he basically keeps track of the things that delight him. And that's things, that's people, that's moments, whatever. And the word he used was negligence. He said it's a negligence if people don't take the time to honor the things that they take delight in, but more importantly, that they share the things that they take delight in. And if you don't do that, there's a loss there.

You have to do it to achieve humanity. You have to shed light.

And that's what we're going to be doing today, right? Yes, that's exactly what we're going to be doing today. We're going to think about what delights us, why it delights. That's why it's important to cultivate delight. And with that, let me just hand over the show to you, your host the show from here. OK, you do the part where you say from WPEC Chicago. I really do. OK, hit it twice.

I sort of said, sure, OK. From WB Chicago, it's this American life and they might even me. Stay with us. Act one, the job of daylight, it's one thing to be attuned to daylight, but it's quite another to scrape off a sample, stick it on a slide and place it under a microscope. Enter Ross Gay, the poet I was talking about a moment ago, Ross is an English professor at Indiana University and a couple of years ago, he embarked on a specific mission to think about delight.

He made it a practice, in fact, for one calendar year. Ross would ask himself what delights me? And then he would write it down. He set rules. He would do it every day. He would drop them quickly, and every single delites would be written by hand. He called them S.A.S.. Some of these associates eventually became a book, The Book of Delights. His was reading an excerpt of Delight number eight from the book Tomato on Board in his living room in Bloomington.

What you don't know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane, is it carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you almost like you're carrying a baby. I did not know this until today, carrying my little tomato about three or four inches high and its four inch plastic starter pot, which my friend Michael gave to me, smirking about how I was going to get at home. Something about this at first felt Ngati not comparing it to made it to a baby, but carrying the tomato onto the plane.

And so I slid the thing into my bag while going through security, which made them pull the bag for inspection when the security guy saw it with a tomato. He smiled and said, I don't know how to check that. Have a good day. But I quickly realized one of its stems, which I almost wrote, his arms was broken from the Jocelin and it only had four of them. So I decided I better just carry it out in the open.

And the shower of love began. Before boarding the final leg of my flight, one of the workers said, nice tomato, which I don't think was a come on, and the flight attendant asked about the tomato at least five times. Not an exaggeration every time calling it my tomato, where's my tomato as my tomato. You didn't lose my tomato, did you? She even directed me to an open seat in the exit row. Why don't you guys go sit there and stretch out?

I gathered my things and set the little guy in the window seat so she could look out. When I got my water, I poured some into the little guy's soil. When we got bumpy, I put my hand on the little guy's container, careful not to snap another arm off, and when we landed and the pilot put the brakes on hard, my arm reflexively went across the seat holding the little guy in place the way my dad's arm would when he had to break in that car without seatbelts to speak of.

And one of my very favorite gestures in the Encyclopedia of Human Gestures.

The Book of Delights is a series of daily snapshots into one man's habits and pleasures. If you ever wanted an essay about the specific sensation of applying coconut oil to a student body, that would be delight. No one. No one. Airports and the people crossing counties in them come up a fair bit, his garden, where we spent a very delightful afternoon talking about bumblebees and potatoes, is the location of many a delight.

Some of the delights in the book were things that surprised him while others were looking back in time.

Memories of people no longer here. A lot of them featured familiar faces in familiar places.

Ross was getting to reassess his environment and consider it through a new lens, a delightful lens I was learning as our eyes guide, and frankly, I probably learned how much some of these things delighted me. The question is always why does that slightly what does it do to a person to study delight or as it emerges, to study joy every single day for a year? What do you discover? One of the things he discovered is the mechanics of how to find delight every day as a discipline because delight doesn't just arrive, you need to actively go looking for it, being in a state of like trying to train your curiosity and trying to train this sense of not knowing.

Delight and curiosity are really tied up like you have to be OK with not knowing things or you have to be actually invested and happy about not knowing things. The Book of Delights is a peculiar thing, an undertaking of serious academic rigor. It also makes you feel good. Those things aren't meant to go together. The book offers up many thoughts on what delite is or what it could be, but it never defined it explicitly. The takeaway is that delight, while important, is hard to pin down.

Reading the book and talking to us about this made me feel like I was floating on a chemically enhanced but perfectly legal in 11 states cloud. I began to think of him as a sort of personal delite guru, and so my questions for him began to take on the strong whiff of a particular realistic.

Did you end up with a grand unifying theory on what delite is?

No, no, but I did. And that with what feels like a kind of beginning theory of what Joy is like. I just had it. And the light is like the butterflies flying around and landing on the thing that is your right.

See, the truly tuross, an important part of delight is that it's an invitation. By loving something, we allow other people an opportunity to love it, to sharing, tapping someone on the shoulder to say, hey, look, so often I feel like I've had the experience of walking through the world and not seeing anything.

And then someone was like, did you see how that, you know, you don't see it until you see it.

And then when you see it, you're like, wow, we just had a bunch of people over here the other night and there was one of them. This couple had this little kid. And so he starts yelling, Rainbow, right.

And what do we do? We were all in here talking being adults, but we ran outside and started looking at the rainbow.

Thank you. Thank you. It's like Comcast quickly. Comcast with me. This is unbelievable.

Which brings us to act two, the squeals on the bus.

It's not surprising that it's a child that runs into tell everyone to come look at a rainbow. There's a feeling that delight is the preserve of children. And any adult who finds delight easily might be a simpleton or a Pollyanna. Perhaps you've noticed this whole hour is an argument against that, but for active, let's spend a little time with a five year old. My colleague, Robyn Semien, son Cole. He had an experience around a mundane thing most adults loathe commuting, he was going to ride the school bus for the very first time.

And remember, this was recorded before the pandemic and before schools were shut down. Robin has the story. Carl has been looking forward to this exact moment for years, more than kindergarten or his first day at school. Taking the bus to school is epic. So one morning this past September, with his new sneakers and Batmen backpack on call and I walked down our driveway. I just can't wait. I'm a bus driver now. What happened to old school?

Yeah, all coal is dead now. Oh, wow. Yeah. Why don't we get old, really old and we start to die. Well, these are very deep thoughts for the book. Riding the Bus to coal was not about riding the bus. It meant he was gaining on his big sister, Josie. She's 10, getting a hair closer to that mysterious, frustratingly out of reach thing that she has autonomy, not wait for the bus here.

So we're going to walk down to the bus stop for the bus comes together down on the corner. Did you know that? No. For a kid obsessed with this trip, he's surprisingly vague on some of the details. See the tree watching that tree right down there on the corner? Yeah, that's our tree that we have to wait there. Is that how Jose does it, as every day? That's how she does it every single day. That's how she's been doing it for three years.

What I don't know is yours. Yeah. And now it's not her.

We get to the corner and wait. Hey, good morning. Our neighbor Ian pulls up, sees us and gets out of his car.

Guess what I'm waiting for? For my bike. Yeah. First time on the bus. They call beams. And pretty soon I think I hear you do. Oh, it was your second call. Wil's the bus to come sooner like everyone at every bus stop ever has done. I think I heard my bus. It sounded different. I think I heard it. I don't think so yet. But we practice greeting the bus driver and then they say, hi, bus driver.

I'm sad. Say, how are you doing?

We did this a couple more times. Still, Cole tells me to stop because it's boring, boring, and then more waiting cause mood dips. He has doubts.

What if there's not nice spot for me in the bus? Well, there'll be a spot for you. They know you're coming. We told them you're coming. OK. OK. I was thinking about taking too long for me. We've been here for like over an hour. It's been ten minutes and it's taking too long.

Snaking crappy, crappy long. Yes.

That's not something that you say. No, we don't say that.

While I'm a little worried that maybe Cole has over imagine the bus ride and it won't live up to eight years of anticipation will only disappoint him. And and then rounding the corner, the ball goes, oh, man, that's. Stand to the side. OK, let's go, let's go coulters past me and up the bus steps like nothing is daring I think to myself.

My mom Kolstad for a second longer facing the rows of seats and kids taking it all in completely lit up again.

I want the bus. Yes, yes, yes, but first, he's fine. Better than fine now. This is what I'm talking about. That was nuchal with his producer, Robyn Semien. Robyn says coal misses a lot of things about school, including taking the bus at three. Mrs. Meek shall inherit the earth. I think the light might actually be more profound when you've experienced more, including real loss and tragedy.

Ross Gay's Book of Delights is edged in despair in its Ross writes about his dearly departed friends, his uncle Earl, his father. He calls them his deceased beloveds.

But that's the way of delight when I think of joy, like grown up joy is made up of our sorrow, just like it's made up of what is pleasing to us. Often it felt like I wasn't going to be able to talk about daylight without talking about these other things, you know. Daylight often implies its absence, Noriko Megg knows all about that after 72 years on Earth, she's made some changes lately. Her daughter Mickey talked to her about it.

My mom is 72 years old. And in this new phase of her life where she's all about doing whatever she wants, I'm glad for her. But sometimes it's kind of annoying. Recently, I was her chauffeur on a road trip through Texas and New Mexico. She woke me up at five thirty in the morning so we could drive an hour to watch the sunrise from some sand dunes in the middle of nowhere. She insisted on hanging out in a cold, crappy parking lot to take pictures of a rainbow.

And when I asked if I could interview her, she told me maybe.

But first she needed to take a bath, her second one for the day. When she finally got out, she sat next to me on the queen bed.

We were sharing one, two, three, and then pulled out some cloth like you're going to clean your teeth while we're talking.

Yeah. So no worry.

I can do whatever, except that I'm sleeping right next to you.

Oh, I forgot the first time I noticed she changed over the summer, standing outside of my brother's house, we've been talking about where to go grocery shopping when she suddenly switch subjects. She asked me with this smiling but also totally serious face if I could tell that she was glowing.

I wasn't totally sure what she was talking about. So I told her, um, yeah, I guess you look nice. And then I just as quickly change the subject back to the cheap produce section at Trader Joe's. So why did you ask me about the fall?

Because to me. So it was so obvious. So you probably seen it because inside I mean, I think I was going inside just radiating joy, just delight.

You know, I don't think I've ever used the word delight in a conversation with you ever.

I don't think I start using these words. Yeah, just recently, I think, because I tell my friends, my life is, you know, just delightful, you know.

Do you say that? Yeah, I do. I've never heard you say that.

My to my friends, this is not the mom I grew up with. She was practical, frugal and not a big fan of hugs, kisses or elaborating on her feelings.

My mom was married to my dad for 43 years. They met in college in their early 20s and then went on to have six kids. My mom stayed at home with us full time and she was kind of a hard ass.

OK, so what is the word delite mean to you? How would you even define that?

Just delite is just like, oh, like your heart out, like ignite something. You know, at the moment you just feel lightness.

So if you were to list about, like, what delights you, what's on the list, first thing in the morning, I wake up and I go to the bathroom and my total toilet is warm, a Japanese toilet with a warm toilet seat.

I just sit on it. It's just so warm. And I just I am so happy. I really feel I am so happy when I think about it every morning.

Yeah. It's a consistently consistent delight. Other things on our list of delights getting discounted donuts for breakfast.

She keeps her freezer stocked with them, going to a ballet class for seniors and reading biographies and bad for two hours every night. She also started traveling for fun for the very first time in her life. Right now, she's on a big nature streak. She's hiked through Joshua Tree, the Badlands, Death Valley, the Pyrenees, and on and on and on. She exhausts me.

So have you ever felt this way before? No. Never. Never. Not even like when we were kids or when you had us?

No, except.

Yeah. I don't think I felt delighted. I was glad you guys are born and safe, but I don't think like raising kids, taking care of your dad. Yeah, I don't think I ever use the word delight because, I mean, I'll place myself always, like, on my knees or whatever. At last, you know, like money or whatever, you know, time. But then after it is all gone and your dad's gone. Finally I have my life and I can do as I want whenever, whatever.

Just, uh, no stress, no responsibility. That's why I say light.

You know, if you're so light and I think delight, delight, voice, just the exact adjective for my life at this point, my life is really amazing.

And then I see movies, you know, three movies a week, sometimes like eight thirty in the morning. That's just wonderful. How many other people in the movie theater or were they just me?

Just great.

After my dad died four years ago from cancer, my mom completely fell apart in a way I'd never seen her before. She suddenly became needy. She openly cried. Before then, all her energy had gone into keeping my dad alive. She'd spent a decade caring for him, constantly driving him to the E.R. in the middle of the night and checking his oxygen levels while he slept. We never really talked about what it was like for her, watching him deteriorate so much that sometimes he felt like a stranger.

But then when he was suddenly gone, all the feeling she'd push down came out in this big, devastating wave for a while, she could barely function for years.

It took four years. I really took a very small step forward after your dad died just to make sure I'm alive. So each morning I get up and I have this terrible pain in my chest. But then I just say, OK, I think I can make myself live to the end of this day.

And that's all I thought about.

Do you feel surprised sometimes that you feel this good?

I mean, when Dad died and I was just so sad, I didn't think this would ever happen.

I really thought my life was over. My mom grieved intensely like this for about six months, and then I asked her to come live with me in my tiny apartment for a while. She said yes, and I didn't expect her to. I thought she'd worry too much about being a burden. But this time she agreed with me that staying with me might actually make her feel better. I wouldn't let her sleep on the couch.

So we got into this whole nighttime routine where we put on our pajamas and read in my bed like some old married couple.

My brother came to visit us once at 10 p.m. My mom tapped me on the knee and said, Time to hit the hammock we set up together. And he was like, What is happening? My mom's choice to stay with me marked the beginning of her, opening herself up and putting herself first.

Right now, her travel calendar for twenty twenty has already all booked up Alabama, Alaska, Italy, Japan, Chicago and Spain. Maybe because my life is getting shorter, that pushes me to be more courageous. Yeah.

You know, so every day I wake up like with some expectation. Anticipation. Yeah.

On my calendar there's nothing I don't want to do.

Um, if Dad had stayed alive and healthy. Do you think you could still feel the way that you do now? Probably not in that. Terrible, because with him my life, you know, I'll have more responsibilities.

He will be number one in my life. And then and then my knees will come after his. Yeah.

So it's just almost sometimes sounds like, oh, I'm glad he's gone. You know, I'm not saying that, but because he's gone, this is the life I have and I just want it to be delightful, you know. I think it's OK, it is OK. Yeah, this questions come to us, Don.

That's my mom telling me she thinks my questions are kind of dumb.

Why is it dumb? Delightful, just to annoying people who think you're really annoying?

Yeah, I think so. That's why, you know, I don't know why you want to do this, because the people think, oh, my gosh, I'm so sick of listening to her, just so self-absorbed, you know? And so what would you say to that?

But I'm sorry. I am I do feel that way genuinely. And sometimes I feel like I earned it, but.

Miki Meek, a constant delight, also a producer on our show, Erika has been staying at home because of Koed. She canceled all of her travel plans. She's reading prolifically and occasionally breaking free to hike. Coming up, would you call yourself a dealer of delights? Beautiful.

It's time to deal with mail and was set up. Yes, I get the litum slang in the late Nomsa A.M. on the Internet corners.

What you need, which need. I got it.

That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. Support for this American life comes from better help online counseling, better help offers licensed counselors who specialize in issues including depression and anxiety, as well as relationships, trauma, anger and more. You can connect privately with a counselor through text chat, phone or video calls, and you'll get help on your own time, at your own pace, and at an affordable rate for a special offer visit.

Better help dotcom longtail. That's better help dotcom sell. It's this American life I'm very mad at one, me taking over the show from IRA for the day. Yes, we are coming over here stealing your jobs. Today's show, The Show of deLites, which first aired at the beginning of 2020, has stories about how we go about making and feeling and actively seeking out delight, which is all around us, by the way.

The poet Ross Gay ambassador for Delite writes about a time he was in New York and saw a man feeding a pigeon perched on his shoulder. He looks closer and sees the bird dipping its head into the hand.

The man must have been holding very near to his own face so that the feeding was not only kind of romantic, but alluded to that original feeding. The bird experienced a mother dropping masticated vittles into the tiny chipper escaped mouth, which is, after all, the first romance. It sounds like something out of a children's picture book, doesn't it? Feeding, caring, being companions to our animals. And with that, we've arrived at act for the elephant in the bedroom.

This scarf has a job that's out of a children's book. She's a zookeeper at the Denver Zoo. So while most people are asleep, she's doling out snacks, checking the animals are warm and cozy, turning out their lights and saying good night. Dana Chiva spends a night with Disha at the zoo, being at the zoo at night is like being backstage hours after a play has ended. The public is long gone. The vendors have packed up their dependents and Zuschlag the paths that wind around the animal.

Exhibits are empty and dark and a little creepy. I followed his flashlight as we walk around D.C..

Your job is very dark. Yeah, but you can't see where you're walking. Usually it's just her. The security guards. Another night zookeeper and 3000 wild animals. This is the best job in the whole world. It's the best job in the whole world.

See, we walk into a building through a back door, the special zookeeper entrance. Disha turns the lights on and I see something I've never seen before. An elephant on the ground, on his side, sleeping.

Describe it. So Chuck is sleeping. Oh, he's waking up. He just stretched his back leg out. He's got a push up with his front seat, doing some upward facing dog stretch and now he's ready for some food.

Each of the 450 different species at the zoo has its own nighttime routine. And he says put them to bed so many times by now, she knows their individual sleep preferences, where they like to sleep, how they like to sleep, with whom they like to sleep. There's a lady lizard who uses a male lizard as a mattress and lemurs who cuddle in branches, the gorillas are the touchiest about their sleep disappoints them after five. Any animal spoon? Oh, a lot of animals are Red River hog spoon, the Red River hogs.

Yeah, we'll see them. They sleep like a pack of sausages. Sorry, hogs. I'm sure she means chicken sausages. There are one year old Komodo dragon siblings who sleep crammed together inside a log. A quick aside, because I find it delightful, those little Komodo guys don't have a father because their mother impregnated herself. I'm not kidding. Female Komodo dragons can impregnate themselves. Decirte knows all the animals, many on a first name basis.

She checks on Daphne the Crocodile and Coco the Porcupine, Murree the Maurey and Ferne the bongo.

Fern, Fern, Prinstein, eat my microphone.

We're just saying I. No, these animals, no decem. They have a relationship.

They're not alarmed to see us. In fact, a lot of them seem expectant like they've been waiting for her to come by and tuck them in.

In the kangaroo section. Everyone is crouching in a group. Nawruz Boukhari. The zebra is still standing up. Zebras can rest on their feet. Gleiser, Bugsy and Boo Otter literally cannot wait one more second for their dad.

I was going to play you a bunch more cute animal sounds here, but my editor said move it along.

So here's some music and said. What's so charming about animals going to sleep? Is it that we're seeing creatures that are so different from us doing something so familiar, reminding us of a commonality that we all have to do this one thing to survive?

You know what? Who cares?

Here's a baby flamingo who wants us to leave him alone so he can get some shuteye.

Sorry.

Disha has the easygoing and gentle demeanor of someone who legitimately loves her job.

The job we all said we wanted as kids, along with firefighter and astronaut, and unlike the rest of us civilians at the zoo, she gets to have direct contact with the animals, take care of them, which she loves.

So we keep an eye on them when I'm there.

The zookeepers are hand feeding Eleanor, a four month old kudo, which is a kind of antelope. Eleanor stands on spindly legs and tugs the entire bottle in one go.

Oh, girl, I don't know.

Eleanor is dad.

Joe comes over looking for some treats, which Disha gives him the dad and then she does something else. You just eat one of those treats.

I did it. Was it not as tasty as I thought they'd be? I just do a little like that. But I take a bite. It's kind of. Grassie says premade biscuits are bad. Then we both confessed to trying dog food when we were kids. There is one animal who's having a rough go of it.

We walk around to the back of the great ape house and disappoints her flashlight at a tree at the top and they're tangled up in some branches is a sheet blowing gently in the wind.

One of the reasons we came down here is we have, um, Jiah veering ITAM. He is. Oh my gosh, he is newer to the zoo. Is that so? He's currently sleeping in a tree. Wait, that's. No, that's that's an Arang it. Why is he wearing a blanket. Yeah he's he's wrapped in a sheet. Jiah should be inside where it's warm.

Orangutans are from the rainforest of Sumatra and Borneo. And I found this baffled because I really thought I was just looking at a wayward sheep caught in a tree. But then the sheep moved. Jiah was under it, clutching it tightly around his little body. It really looks like there's a little person up there. Yeah, Tchi only been at the zoo for a few months.

He moved here from a zoo in Minnesota in August. He's still getting used to it. A few days ago something spooked him. He retreated to the yard and climbed up a tree.

Do you worry about him in the cold when you worry about him. Yeah. So from the records today it looks like the keeper took some binoculars and tried to look at his fingers and toes to see if there are any signs of frostbite in his. And they're really bright red. So we'll just, you know, check on him throughout the night.

I guess one of the complicated things about daylight is that it can exist like a colonel at the center of misfortune. Sometimes daylight is found in the ability to take care of another living thing that needs you. It's nice to be needed. Do you have a favorite animal?

My favorite animal is Rudy the right now. Why? Because he's the best. I see the best. He's like a puppy, so he's really gentle and nice. And mostly I think I love Rudy because most of the animals that I have built a kind of relationship with, because I see him all the time, usually because, like, I give them food, Rudy, I do not give him food.

But he will, like, come to me when I call him, like, if he's outside and I need him to come inside because it's too cold. I call him and he'll come over. Yeah. He responds to me and I know he's my best friend.

The thing about Rudy and what a nice guy he is, what if the joy we get from interacting with animals, the idea that we can have relationships of mutual affection is a total illusion.

What if the truth is that for these animals anyway, our relationships are mostly transactional? Does the delight then disappear? Or maybe that is the transaction. We give them food and they give us delight.

We just got a text message. There's one last moment I want to tell you about.

So one of our star keepers, Matt, is asking we can check on Charlie's kitchen door to make sure it got through. It got closed. He sure he did it. But you know how it is. He'll wake up at 2:00 a.m. in a panic.

Charlie is a Vietnamese pot bellied pig. His day keeper, Matt couldn't remember if he shut the door to his yard.

Well, we go to check on Charlie. And, yes, his door is closed. He's completely sacked out. He's made himself a big nest.

Have he somehow managed to cover most of his body with it? His head included. So all we can see is his belly rising and falling. The deep, sleepy breath.

Charlie the boy. I like Charlie.

He's terse but uncomplicated. You know, he knows his name. He recognizes that. He says talking to him and he responds the communicating across species. For me, this one short interaction contains all the magic of her job. Disha and a pig are talking to each other.

Dana Chevis, whose love for her dog delights me, co-produced today's show, and for those of you who care Jiah, the orangutan is back indoors, frostbite free. At Five deLites at the end of the tunnel, I suspect that is simply a feature of being an adult, what I will call being grown or a grown person.

Again, Roski to have endured some variety of thorough emotional turmoil, to have made your way to the brink. And if you're lucky to have stepped back from it, if not permanently, then for some time or time to time. This is Delite No.

100 to grown groundedness.

Ross goes on to talk about the importance of seeing things as they are in the moment where you don't feel panic or despair or doom and knowing what I have felt before and might feel again, feel a sense of relief, which is cousin to or rather water to delight. This last story is about someone who's defined by daylight but then loses it. I first got to know her through her blog, Little Known Black History Facts, which is one of my favorite things, is an affectionate parody of the Black History Month rollout of African-American excellence that happens every February.

But the achievements on this site, they're all made up things like inventor of the church clap or first person to put more than twenty five barrettes in.

One child had one time.

You know, black people stuff. The person behind these perfectly observed jokes is one of the funniest people I know. Her name's Tracy Clayton, although you may know her as burkeman poverty on the Internet where she has legions of fans. Tracy ran a little known black history fact for five years. She's the creator of so many of my favorite things, a little known black history. Fact is, the one I think about most often, even if Tracy doesn't.

Do you remember anything from that ridiculous blog? No, that was Derrick Morris, who was the first person to rap loudly to himself while standing at a bus stop.

Don't like, you know, that was there. It was Haberfeld Bliss. And he was the first person to reneg in a game of spades. You know what? I don't even play spades. I just know that that is a bad thing.

I think that was also George Jimani Spencer, who was the first he was the first person to end every sentence with. It is what it is. Yeah.

Like a the patron saint of reality shows. They say that all the time. At the end of the day is what it is. Another great one.

Tracy and I have friends now, but I was a fan first, a big fan. What makes a comedy so good is an incredible observation skills.

He works from a position of what the Southern writer Kaisei layman calls black abundance. Her references come from her own black American experience. Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as wider culture, she marries high concept to the very silly and little known black history facts, which is one of the many things you created. Tracy is a one woman production line of golden Internet content that gifted brain of her spots the lines and amplifies it.

In fact, it felt like Tracy's entire life was about cultivating glee and then, seemingly at the height of her powers, she just stopped making stuff.

She lost her ability to feel delight. I felt like I was laying on the bottom of the ocean floor and looking up and like I could see like the sun in like people on a beach somehow.

But I'm just like miles and miles and leagues and leagues away from it.

Things got really bad for Tracy and for her that was extreme because Delite wasn't just a job, it was also her identity. This is a story of what happened when things went dark for Tracy and how she made it back to a place of delight.

In 2015, Tracy and her friend Kevin Nagasu began making a weekly podcast with BuzzFeed called Another Round. Hi, everyone.

I'm Kevin. I'm Tracy, and welcome to Another Round with Kevin and Tracy.

Well, up close that there was nothing else like it at the time.

Two black women trading witty banter and talking about the stuff that was important to them, fuelled by their natural chemistry.

And of course, given the name of the show, a good amount of booze, another round did so much so well. Interviews with academics, comedians and MacArthur geniuses like Lin, Manuel Miranda and Nicole Hannah Jones. They even interviewed then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

But that was only part of it.

The show was funny, intellectual, thoughtful and also deeply, brilliantly silly.

I loved the quizzes. Yes, one of heaven's masterpieces was a multiple choice quiz on fake names, or as she put it, is this a white man's name or just some syllables?

I mashed together British edition. British people already have supervillains doing the most already.

Anyway, in this quiz, Tracey had to guess which of the names Heaven was reading belonged to an actual real person.

All right, friend from Middlesworth, Prim Prem Willoughby's. I quit. Tristram Hunt. Renren Pendleton, I'm going to say is one of the last two.

I vote for Tristram.

You're correct. Another round was a hit.

They were doing live shows, selling out venues across the country and abroad.

They won awards. They sold merchandise. Heaven and Tracy were being recognized by fans in the street as it grew. The show was getting more demanding to make it needed more money, more staff, more time. And they weren't getting any of that. Then Heaven left BuzzFeed. She took a job at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and came back to record new episodes when she could. But things weren't the same, Tracy understood, but it was still hard on both of them.

We didn't have a good way to manage that transition.

And I think that since I was the only one in the building who was like accessible all the time, a lot of the work fell on me and my shoulders, which I'm happy to do the work. But I got tired and I didn't know it.

You know, I would wake up like, oh, my God, again, you know, I can't do this, but I'm doing it anyway.

I was working at BuzzFeed during this time and ended up cohosting three episodes, sitting in for either Tracy or Heaven. There's one episode in particular that really sticks in my mind.

So everyone having seen all of her love from very, very, very top and bottom of her heart, she is going to be back soon.

She's still busy making magic and stuff with Mr. Colbert.

But in the meantime, in between time, we've got be in the studio and.

Yes, shoulders working, hit them with shovels. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

It was a ridiculous time, like so much. It was the funniest episode. And I think afterwards I was talking to you and it was like, OK, well, we finished that up. We done recording.

And I was like, so what are you up to for the rest of the day?

And you said, back to bed for a depression that I like.

The minute the mic went off, you were just kind of like, all right, yeah. Back to my real life. That's very true. You remember that all? No, not that.

I mean, I remember that episode messed up, but I don't remember the depression, that stuff. And I think that's because I was depressed and like, your memory just doesn't it's not there also when every day feels like another day and another day, just like I couldn't even tell you, like what year that happened.

But it sounds sounds about right. I feel like that's the theme for a pretty long period of my life.

Listening back to the episodes of the show that aired during this dark period, it's hard to discern that anything was amiss. And that's because Tracy proved to be adept at employing that age-Old Schubas trick. She faked it.

Having to fake the funk, as it were, was driven mostly by I can't let other people down. And it was also sort of like muscle memory.

I guess I'm really, really, really good at small talk. When you are faking delight, do you feel delite like does it bleed into it?

Yeah, I, I would kind of like get lost and like kind of caught up in the conversation. So I did have chances to get kind of like carried away. The effects were not long term, but it did give me a nice little little break. Little pockets of.

OK, Ines, here and there, but I tell you it, like as soon as the interviews and stuff are over, stepping out of it, stepping out of the suit, it was just like like I had gone 12 rounds with Tyson.

The show eventually went on hiatus. Tracy went on disability. At first it was a relief to just stay home. Leaving the house would have meant dealing with New York, the noise, the people, the subway. But then Tracy realized she was staying in because she was afraid to leave her apartment. This one time, like I was supposed to go somewhere.

I was all dressed somehow by the grace of God and whoever else was watching, like I was dressed, I looked decent, I didn't look depressed, quote unquote. And I got to the door of my apartment.

I thought about the track on the subway. And I was like, I can't. And I just I didn't go out. I put myself through all of that, like getting dressed and like, it had taken hours for this to happen.

And I fight with myself to be kind to yourself. It's OK if your eyebrows outmatch. It's OK. If it's taking you four hours to get ready, just do it. And then by the time I got to the door, I was just like I expended so much energy getting myself together. I cannot also expend energy, like trying to make my brain focus on like, which step do I get off of? She did less and less. And the fact that she was doing this made her feel even worse.

She turned her quick, talented mind inwards, turned herself into a target, and was relentless at attacking herself. She couldn't turn it off. Tracy stopped cleaning her apartment, barely changed clothes. I just remembered being in my room on my bed.

The entire place is a mess.

And I was just laying and I was thinking about how nobody knows, you know, that right now. This is where I am.

And I remember getting my phone to text my friend Teddy, who lives in Louisville. And I was just like, I'm having a tough time and I just need somebody to know it.

And he was very great. He was like, you know, I'm glad that you reached out and I know it now, but I don't know. There was something about. Something about just wanting somebody to know that you're sad that I was like, wow, I'm really sad.

After almost a year of feeling truly terrible, Tracy had something that felt like a breakthrough. It started with a ritual she'd been doing every night for months.

Oh, there was this moment when I realized that Otis Redding, sitting on the dock of the bay is about depression. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this entire time. Are you kidding me? I thought it was some, like, old man song about fishing because I only knew the cause.

But the words, oh, my gosh, sitting on the dock of the bay watching the time or the tide roll away. Yeah.

Just wasting time. Just like nothing else to do. Nowhere else to go.

So Tracy had a playlist of sad songs, including Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. And every night around 9:00 p.m., she'd stand at the window of her apartment, smoking and drinking and looking down at the street, feeling like a caricature of a sad girl.

And there's one night after, however many months of this ritual, I just started to dance like first it was like a little Swades, like whatever song was playing and may have been the Otis Redding song because, I mean, those got like a little and said, no, no, no, no.

Hey, hey, hey.

You know, I've got like you can just have a little bit to it. And after that I was like, maybe I want to listen to other things to dance to.

And so I switched to a different playlist, couldn't tell you what it was. And I think I danced for like an hour, danced and smoked and just drank. And it felt good.

And I was smiling and I was confused. But I was like, don't pick it apart, like, just and I also like I could feel how ridiculous I probably looked because, I mean, it's not like I was to seven the whole time. Right. It was just like some weird interpretive like, can this muscle still move? Can I still do a back bend.

I cannot. I learned.

But it felt. I don't know, it almost felt like my body was like trying to reach my brain somehow because it wasn't my brain that told my body to start dancing, I'm pretty sure I think my body was like, you know what? You know, I haven't seen in a long time the brain let me check in with the brain and see how things are going. Oh, terribly well, it stands a little bit.

During these months, she also looked to professionals. She chose a couple who looked like her, understood her.

They are all. And when I say I mean, both my therapist and my psychiatrist don't know how it happened, but they are both black women.

Yeah, they will both do not interview sessions online. So I have to leave my house when I Clinton and I had to put on pants when I couldn't.

One day I got emotional because I woke up late and I forgot about my appointments.

I'm on the little Skype or whatever and I have my bonnet on. And I was like, I'm so sorry that I still have this bonnet on and know it's not professional.

And my therapist said it's OK. I went to it.

I was like. And since then, I just show up on my boat, I'm like, what's up?

Eventually, sometime last year, Tracy found herself asking variations of the same question she thinks heaven might have mentioned it. It was this. Is there anything good that your depression has given you?

It sounded perverse. She couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop mulling the question. She found that thinking about the answers made her feel good. When she mentioned it to her therapist, she told Tracy that finding something good in a bad situation could be a good sign of healing. And I was like, sounds fake, but what do you mean?

And she was like she said, the thing really helps you connect with your emotions. But I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means to connect with an emotion. Like I feel it. I recognize it. I want it. I don't like it. You know, I'm ignoring it. I guess that's what she means. Yeah, I know. I think you're answering the question. All right. Let's take that off my to do list.

So with the question in mind, Tracey started writing in a brand new journal, not unlike Ross Gay's Book of Delights.

She calls it a gratitude journal, which sounds earnest.

And yes, she's aware, not very cool.

It's a simple practice. A couple of times a week, she writes down what she's grateful for. When she started, she didn't have much faith.

A few months ago, I'd have been like, this is just like the most ridiculous. You know, it's not going to work.

It's like, you know, people like get up and walk around the block and you won't be depressed. Yes, I will. You know, and eventually this gratitude journal is going to turn into a chore.

Another thing that I can't keep up that is not happened at all, like it really helps to remember good things that happen to you.

It's been shockingly effective. In his delight, SARS bird feeding the poet Roski witnesses a man feeding a pigeon in the park.

Less than 30 seconds later, he watches another bird, a tough to titmouse, this time swoop down into the hand of a different, wholly unconnected person. A lovely moment twice over. But he wouldn't have noticed that second bird. He said the first bird hadn't prepared him to see it.

Tracey's fans thought of her as their first bird, not only a delightful person by herself, but also a doorway to more delight.

Now she's figuring out how to be her own first bird, to develop a system to do for herself what had previously come naturally. Tracy's back at work, she's making new podcasts, interviewing people, being hilarious. She's not faking it. When her mom calls with a four year old great nephew, Jaden, she's able to pick up the phone even if it's hard at first. Sometimes she had called.

I answer the phone. I'm like, in I doing great. I kind of want to get off the phone. And she was like, OK.

And then she calls Jaden in. And I'm just like, oh, I don't, because he's got so much energy, like, you know, when I don't have the energy, he still has the energy. So sometimes I'm just like, get this kid away from me, you know, like love them, love to that. But like, I just couldn't do it in, like, times of like high stress.

And the first thing he says when he sees me is, oh, hey, Tracy, like, I just interrupted him from doing something that's important for year old duties. Payday and how are you doing?

Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then my mom will go ask her the question and then I'm just like, oh, I don't feel like it.

But then he says, OK, I have a question. And then I'm like, Where's your question, Jayden? Why are you so cute?

And I instantly just perk up and smile. I know what the question is going to be.

I know I said I have an answer and I know, like even as you say, and I'm just like, it's not going to work.

But as soon as he says, you know, just like, I don't know why it OK, you know, being able to deal with family in a hugely energetic child is definitely a sign of like mom was coming back. So feel home.

Now, was that a color performer or was it was this is the black American life has ever been a whole lot.

Tracy Clayton is the host of three podcasts, Back Issue, My 90s playlist and Strong Black Legends about.

So I don't know. Come on.

On our program today was produced by me and Dana Chavis, our staff includes Elna Baker, Emmanuel Barry, Zoe Chace, Sean Cole, Naugle, Damien Braith, Michelle Harris, Miki Meek, Lena Masisi, Stone Nelson, Catherine Reymundo, Ben Feiglin, Nadia Raymon, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, Christopher Switzler Mahtani and Nancy Updike.

A managing editor is Diane. Our executive editor is David Kestenbaum. Special thanks today to having regard to Michael Mackenzie, Emily Miles, Ethan Friede, Amy Massola and Joanna Kagan. If you like Terry Gross on our show today and want to read more work by him.

He has a new book of poetry out called Beholding.

Our website is This American Life Dog. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by the Public Radio Exchange.

Thanks to my boss, IRA Glass, who guided me as I hosted the show this week.

He really got stuck in, though it did get a little annoying when he brought his soup into the studio.

I'm don't want me. IRA Glass will be back next week with more stories of this American. Don't go WAOK. Next week on the podcast of This American Life, single people in New York on dating apps, people who normally play the field, people who normally want anything but a commitment since covid singing a very different tune, lots of them saying things like, I need someone to winter with and other stories that people in all kinds of settings trying to figure out who makes the cut next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.