Book Report: Things to Look Forward To (43)

28. Sophie Blackall, Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day (2022) (12/18/22)

I learned about this book from Maria Popova's end-of-year list of favorite books. It's a quick read, with appealing illustrations. Fifty-two things to look forward to, or simply enjoy—like the sun coming up (#1), baking something for someone (#4), patting a friendly dog (#17), seeing the sea (#28), finishing something (#36: that one I can relate to—I'm not good at finishing things, but when I do, oh, it's such a sweet feeling!), a nap (#43), going somewhere (#49), and seizing the day (#52). (I selected those randomly, simply by leafing through the book.)

The one entry I take exception to is #44: Doing Your Taxes. Look forward to doing your taxes??? Never! This one could have used a bit of inflection: Having Finished Doing Your Taxes I could buy, especially if you're looking forward to a refund.

A few that got my mind sizzling a bit (in a good way) were: #46 Growing Your Own Food (or more generally, gardening: we are about to redo our main garden bed, and yes, I am looking forward to getting involved with the planting, and even with the upkeep—though catch me in a year, and let's see how that's actually going... still, hope springs eternal, right?); #19 Rainbows (it's always a sweet thrill to see a rainbow, even just a bit of one); #32 Finding Something You Thought You'd Lost (I have a rather long mental list of things whose whereabouts I've lost track of and would like to find...); #35 Visiting a Museum (a possible project for 2023! yes!).

Here's #7: A New Word (which is something I do look forward to—learning new words—though I usually immediately forget the words in question and what they mean).

My father has a steel-trap memory and a vast vocabulary. The show-off. But even he comes across an unfamiliar word now and then. And he texts it to me, and I try to find him one in return. Words like staffage, the little figures in a landscape painting; or tittle, the little dot over or under a letter; or fulvous, a nicotine yellow; or hispid, meaning "covered with bristles." Our goal is to use them casually in conversation. I discover words that are new to me every day, but I look forward to the challenge of finding one for my father.

Here is what a spread from the book looks like:

And here are a few illustrations up close:

#1 The Sun Coming Up

#48 Walking in Cemeteries

#14 Listening to a Song You've Heard Before

This book got me thinking a bit about things I might look forward to in 2023 (and the run-up to), such as...

• certainly, our May–June trip to Copenhagen to see old friends, then the far north of Norway with family, and finally France, where again we will hopefully meet up with another friend and other family
• this coming New Year's Eve, a morning hike with a friend I haven't seen in quite a while
• every morning, my first cup of coffee (#2 in Blackall's book)
• making a list (#51) of some goals for the coming year (never mind that last year's list immediately fled my mind and almost nothing got checked off: this year, I'm going to shoot for 23 items—for 2023; not 68, for the number of years I've lived, as I've done in the past . . . Let's be reasonable!)
• selling my printer and motorcyle, two albatrosses around my neck
• finding my Hasselblad—and probably selling it too . . . but where the heck is it?
• finishing an artist book I got three-quarters of the way through, oh, four years ago?
• visiting museums in towns throughout California (the new project! it might turn into something!)
  

The list could (and will) go on. I'll keep thinking about it. There really is so much to look forward to.