After the Music Stops

The Art of Savoring

“There are three ways to find pleasure in something,” Colleen’s grandmother told her. “There is the pleasure of anticipating an event. There is the pleasure of the experience.  And then there is the pleasure of remembering  what happened.” Decades later, Colleen shared her words with me. The lesson stuck that well. 

Every year, for the past ten years, a group of friends and our collective offspring have gathered the first week of July on Cape Cod at a house we call “The Red House”, even though it was painted blue years ago. The Red House is a half-mile through the woods from our summer cottage and it is perfect; full of books and a kitchen stocked with bowls and plates whose collection spans generations. One bedroom door has the name Peter on it, the other Anna. The doors were named for children who are now themselves great-grandparents. It is that kind of house. One that invites you in and wants you to stay. It welcomes you to create your own memories there. And that is what we do. We grill fish slathered in fresh herbs, we sit around an enormous table playing games and making music. Children walk back and forth to the ponds all day. 

Our most recent ritual is Frankly, It’s Delicious, a magazine with a limited run of 15, reporting the weeks’ activities, mishaps, and notable moments. This year, an entire page was devoted to diagraming how to use a jack and a plank of wood to rescue a car stuck in the sand. 

The Red House week is always a string of delights, each day more soothing and complete than the last. This year was no exception. We arrived on Friday night. We exploded our suitcases, started cooking and, suddenly, a week had passed. It was time to pack suitcases, wash the sheets, and sweep the floors. The vacation we had waited two years for--the vacation we’d survived a pandemic for!-- was over. 

After our friends decamped, I had only a bag of leftovers to carry back to our cottage so I lingered in the empty house. I could feel it reverberating with our presence the way you can feel music after it stops. The kitchen smelled of basil and sunscreen. An abandoned sock peeked out from under the couch. I sat in the reading chair, recalling the sounds of our children over the years—the clink of legos, harmonies from Hamilton, and most recently, daily requests to drive the car. I felt a sweet, tender wave of sorrow well up into my chest and stay there, not quite sad enough to cry. The French have the term “Le Petite Mort”, little death, to describe the period of melancholy or transcendence that follows an orgasm or an expenditure of the "life force" energy. Like turning the last page of a beloved book, endings, particularly endings of highly pleasurable experiences, can be hard. It’s tempting to escape the discomfort by moving onto the next experience or by busying oneself with the details of life. But, I wondered, how might I extend the pleasure after the peak experience?

I threw myself into researching the art of savoring and I have a few things to share:

• It takes time to savor.
  I used to arrive home from a trip in time to get to work on Monday morning. I thought I was maximizing the experience. What I didn’t recognize was that I was short-changing myself and the experience. God took a day off to enjoy the creation of the world. The Sabbath is not just for sleep, it’s also a chance to savor. This weekend, I gave myself time to linger with the memories of the past week, rolling them over in my mind the way I would melt a piece of chocolate in my mouth. 

• Memories fade, sensations stay.
  The body keeps the score, writes Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. in his eponymous book. This usually refers to the way that trauma is stored in the body, in our cells, our muscles, and in our neural pathways. But our bodies store the good stuff, too. These days, I am bringing my attention to the ways my body feels in joyous moments, the times where I feel peaceful and at home. The sensations of calm chest expansions, the flex of a smile, the exhalation of a laugh, are the building blocks of pleasure. By heightening our awareness of these sensations as they occur, we can come to recall them at will.
  

• Leave yourself breadcrumbs.
  Much in the way that trauma has triggers, pleasurable memories can be unlocked by physical cues. Some of this happens automatically, like when a song reminds us of an old friend or the aroma of onions sends us waxing poetic about a grandparent. We can do this consciously, too, like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to find our way back. Photographs are one way to do this.  The five senses can also be “keys” to remembering. I have chosen a few sensations to remind me of our beautiful week: the smell of charcoal on a grill, The Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love”, the feel of the dry grass cracking under my feet, and iced coffee.
  

• Embrace the brevity.
  Rather than feeling disappointed that time flew by and now it’s over, I am leaning into the ending. Research shows that we have a positivity bias towards last experiences. When subjects were told that they were about to eat their last piece of chocolate, they reported more pleasure than those who had an unlimited supply of chocolate.
  

• Share frames.
  A “frame” is a verbal snapshot of a very specific moment and how it made you feel. It doesn’t have to be your most favorite memory, it can be anytime you feel a heightened sensation. For instance, my frame of the week was the moment when I stood outside the house at night and listened to the sounds of everyone in the kitchen and I felt like I was home.  Sharing frames is a great way to digest and lock in an experience.

• Share the vibes.
  Writing and sharing our experiences helps us to deepen the grooves of our neural pathways. It gives us a route to remembering. And, bonus, we even get to convey the feel-goods with others.
  

• Go remembering.
  I’ve been taking a few moments here and there, closing my eyes and wandering through the week. And along the way, I am saying thank you for the sweetness of every moment.

  
  

  

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