There is Still Pleasure to Be Had

You can lose an entire Friday to the belief that you should feel better before you make any plans. By better, of course, we mean several things. Less anxious. More financially secure. More comfortable in your body. Less affected by something someone said three weeks ago. Ideally, you would also have a clear sense of purpose and a refrigerator without a suspicious drawer.

Then you could invite someone over. Then you could wear the dress, book the room, spend an afternoon somewhere with a view. Until then, you will be responsible. You will work on yourself. You will spend another evening researching why you have trouble enjoying your life.

I have considerable affection for a woman who can turn pleasure into a subject she needs to study before attempting it. I also want to close her laptop and take her somewhere. We can discuss her difficulty receiving over dinner. With any luck, she will forget what she was saying when the food arrives.

We have made so many ordinary human experiences contingent on becoming a woman with fewer problems. Rest requires a completed list. Desire requires a body we approve of. A beautiful afternoon requires some reassurance that we have earned the time. Even our small indulgences come with a defense prepared in advance. The flowers were on sale. We had a coupon. We have been very good lately.

Sometimes I want to ask who, exactly, is auditing the flowers. Who needs to see the evidence that a grown woman deserved something lovely on her kitchen table? And how did we come to accept a life in which buying a bunch of tulips feels faintly irresponsible, while spending another forty-five minutes cataloging our shortcomings feels like a sensible use of an evening?

The supervision becomes so familiar that we stop noticing it. We carry it into the dressing room and bring it to dinner. We consult it before saying yes to something we want, even when nobody else has an opinion. You may have left the church, divorced the husband, disappointed your mother, and built a business of your own, yet still feel compelled to explain why you sat in the sun for forty minutes on a weekday.

That voice can have a surprisingly long tenure, and personal growth gives it such respectable work to do. There is always another pattern to examine, another reaction that suggests you are not quite as healed as you thought. Someone is always available to explain what your difficulty receiving pleasure reveals about your childhood. You can spend a great deal of money learning why you feel guilty about a relatively inexpensive lunch.

Some of that work can help enormously. I make my living having conversations that help women see themselves and their choices more clearly. I believe in reflection, and I have seen what happens when a woman finally understands something that has been directing her life for decades. The relief can be immense. So can the choices that become available afterward.

I have also seen women become so occupied with understanding their lives that they rarely get around to inhabiting them. They know why they struggle to receive. They can explain the family history and describe, with impressive precision, the way they abandon themselves. Meanwhile, the afternoon is passing, and they would quite like to go to the beach.

At some point, that desire needs a little authority. You can go with your complicated history. You can take the grief, the uncertainty, and the unfinished conversation. You may sit there for twenty minutes thinking about the same thing you were thinking about at home. Then a dog will make a ridiculous attempt to catch a wave, and you will laugh. For a moment, something else will have your attention, and you will remember how good it feels to be reached by a world you did not have to manage.

I think about how often women become the people responsible for making pleasure possible for everyone else. We know who likes which food, when to make the reservation, and what needs to be packed. We arrange the birthday, choose the music, remember the candles, and notice when someone has gone quiet at the table. Even a lovely evening can become a small production we are running from the kitchen.

After years of this, being asked what we would enjoy can feel oddly difficult. We can tell you what would work for the group. We can tell you what is affordable, convenient, and likely to keep everyone happy. Our own preference may need a minute to surface. It may also be inconvenient. We might want to eat somewhere nobody else likes, spend the afternoon alone, or go dancing with a friend who has never once asked us to help her become more productive.

There is something worth practicing there. Choose the restaurant occasionally. Let someone else figure out the parking. Allow yourself to be a guest without getting up to clear every plate. If you are alone, resist the assumption that your own company requires less care. You can cook something you are excited to eat and sit down for it. You can put on music before you start chopping the onions.

I am wary of any vision of healing in which a woman must spend years earning her way back to ordinary pleasure. I want her to have support with the hard things and somewhere good to go on Saturday. I want her to be able to tell the truth about her marriage and still enjoy the music on the drive home. A painful season can contain a delicious meal. You can miss someone terribly and get absorbed in a book. You can have no idea how a situation will resolve and still find yourself flirting across a table.

That can feel disloyal, especially in grief. You catch yourself laughing and then remember. For a second, the pleasure seems like evidence that you have forgotten someone, or failed to understand the seriousness of your circumstances. But love does not require you to keep every room dark. You can carry a loss into a beautiful place. You can wish someone were there to see it and be glad you came.

Nor do you have to make every pleasure useful. The walk does not need to regulate you. The dinner does not need to deepen your relationships. You do not need to return from the museum with a revelation you can apply to your business. You can go because you want to stand in front of a painting for a while, then wander into the gift shop and develop an unreasonable attachment to a postcard.

I suspect many women are hungry for experiences they cannot put on a progress report. An evening that runs late because the conversation is good. A little harmless vanity. The pleasure of having a preference and following it without assembling a committee. Something to anticipate that has nothing to do with becoming more capable. We have plenty of occasions to demonstrate how much we can handle. I would like us to have more occasions when we forget to check the time.

These things need actual space in a life, which means making arrangements before the mood is perfect. Put something on the calendar while the other appointments are still there. Let the invitation go out before you decide whether the house is ready. Wear something you like on the body that will be accompanying you, and give yourself enough time to get dressed without turning the mirror into a disciplinary hearing.

You will probably feel the urge to postpone. You may hear yourself explaining that next month would be more sensible, and sometimes it will be. You know your circumstances. But sometimes postponement is simply an old habit speaking with the confidence of a financial adviser. It has been promising you a more suitable time for years. You are allowed to look at its record before taking its advice again.

There are things I still want to understand about myself. There are things I wish were easier, and losses I expect to carry for the rest of my life. I cannot make enjoying the years ahead dependent on reaching the end of that work. I want beauty in the middle of it. I want a table I am glad to sit at, people whose company makes me linger, and the occasional plan that requires earrings.



So yes, there is unfinished business. Some of it will need attention next week, and some of it may take a long time. Tonight, I would like to put on something lovely and have a conversation that wanders. I would like to order what sounds good without explaining what I did to deserve it. When the plates have been cleared and someone asks whether we have time for another cup, I would like to stay.