Things that Make Me Go “Ooo!”
Photo courtesy of Gratisography
Sunday, March 15th, 2026For the past few months, I’ve been noticing a new internal signal.
It sounds like “Ooo!” And it feels like Pop Rocks.
It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. It is involuntary. An inaudible sound that happens somewhere between my brain and my mouth when something unexpectedly delightful occurs.
Many years ago, while listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast, someone – I can’t remember who – was talking about the truth that comes with involuntary physical responses. If something elicits an unconscious physical reaction – a sound, a movement, a physical feeling – then the reaction is genuine and can be trusted. The body has already decided. The brain is just catching up.
The important part is that it happens before the brain has time to think about it. Which means it’s real. It isn’t being created in the mind, thought about, decided upon. It just is.
Tiny sparkles behind my eyes, in my head, in my mouth. Small bursts of delight that appear out of nowhere and slowly fade away. Like Pop Rocks.
I don’t even like Pop Rocks. I do like this though.
And now that I know this can happen, I’m paying attention to feel for more.
I come from a long line of people who are very good at identifying what’s wrong with things. Show us something beautiful and we will immediately begin discussing the lighting or the angle. Seriously. My dad was an award winning photographer.
This can be a useful trait. It’s great for comparing photo negatives, defining systems, and spotting pattern issues before they become disasters.
It’s less useful for recognizing Delight.
Growing up, celebration mostly meant holidays. There wasn’t much else to celebrate. The idea that everyday life might contain small pockets of “joy” wasn’t really a thing.
Which could be why these pop rock moments of delight feel so strange.
This weekend, Co-star said I needed to do a cooking challenge. Well, it was Pi Day, and we all know how much I love a good pie! What a great opportunity to use my new Pieometry cookbook that I got as a Christmas gift this year.
The last recipe in the book is a bosc pear with miso caramel pie, tiled in small hexagons of dough each decorated with an edible flower. It was beautiful and it sounded delicious!
Which means, now we need to find some edible flowers. In the morning, it was time to walk the dogs and I told him he had to get up. He was in charge of the flower petals.
He didn’t argue. He didn’t negotiate. He just got up.
A couple blocks from home we found a tree with a few branches bursting with flowers. I held the clean doggie bag open while he plucked the branches. Mission accomplished. When we got home, he pulled each petal from the rest of the flower while I rolled out the dough.
No complaining. No half-assing. No bad attitude.
Using the core of a paper towel roll, he set to work pressing out circles of dough and recreating the five petaled cherry blossom on each one. Time was getting tight and I helped him finish placing tiny blossoms like we were building a fragile pink mosaic. Fifty circles in all, 250 flower petals, each placed individually by hand.
He finished the last petal, leaned over to kiss my cheek, and went to get ready for class.
Ooo! Pop Rocks!
The gesture was sweet.
But the feeling was more about the whole sequence of events.
The silliness of taking direction from an astrology app.
The absurdity of picking flowers for a pie.
The fact that he didn’t treat it like an annoyance, or an inconvenience, or something he was humoring me through.
He was all in. He was exactly on my level. And he was enjoying it.
Apparently my nervous system has a thing for that.
Now that I know what to feel for, I’m noticing it elsewhere.
Sleepy dogs in the morning – one asleep on my chest, the other glued long to the side of my leg – both of them snuggled under their blanket. Unconditional love – even after she shit all over the carpet two days in a row.
Teaching someone how to do something complicated – through clear deliberate instruction – and watching the exact moment it clicks. Inspiring confidence and competence in others.
Live guitar music making my chest swell for reasons I cannot explain. Sound and tone have a deep effect on me.
None of these things are dramatic. But the feeling is unmistakable. Ooo! Pop rocks.
What’s strange is that these moments feel new. Not because “Delight” itself is new, but because I’m starting to suspect something I hadn’t considered before.
For a long time I assumed “Delight” mostly lived in special times and places – holidays, other people’s lives, movies, the rare occasions when I felt like I’d been seen – but didn’t belong in the normal texture of my life.
Lately it feels more like evidence. Evidence that maybe I deserve this too.
For the last year I’ve been building a Pinterest board, called Mine.
Mine is full of objects and ideas I would want if I ever had a house of my own.
Weird animals.
Strange wooden people.
Birdcage lamps.
Bright colors hiding in unexpected corners.
Tiny surprises everywhere.
Not loud. Not overwhelming. Just enough to make you stop for a second and think:Ooo!
The funny thing is that none of these things exist in my current environment. I live in someone else’s house surrounded by someone else’s objects.
The board is just a board. A catalog of delights I don’t have yet, for a house I don’t have yet.
But the delight is ready when I am.
Happiness has always felt like a strange concept to me. Big. Abstract. Fleeting. Dependent on too many things outside my control.
Delight is different. Delight is small. Delight can be engineered.
A well-placed object. A weird lamp. A room that surprises you if you’re paying attention.
Delight can also ambush you when you least expect it.
Sleeping dogs sharing a blanket.
A delicious pie.
A song sung just for me.
Pop rocks.
Right now I’m mostly just watching for the “Ooo!”. Because if something in my body reacts that clearly, it probably means it matters.
And if it matters often enough, maybe that feeling is worth designing a life around.
Not happiness.
Delight.
Ooo!
Stay Gritty