Jocelyn Delk Adams - Everyday Grand

Copyright 2023 by Jocelyn Delk Adams

Photographs copyright 2023 by Brittany Conerly

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN9780593236215

Ebook ISBN9780593236222

Photographer: Brittany Conerly

Food Stylist: Dmytrek Brown

Food Stylist Assistants: Dori Towns, Mercedes Evans, Brittany Neisen

Prop Stylist: Maeve Sheridan

Editor: Jennifer Sit

Editorial Assistant: Bianca Cruz

Production Editor: Joyce Wong

Print Production Manager: Jessica Heim

Print Compositors: Merri Ann Morrell and Zoe Tokushige

Copy Editor: Ivy McFadden

Indexer: Elizabeth Parson

Marketer: Stephanie Davis

Publicist: Erica Gelbard

Cover photographs by Brittany Conerly

Ebook Production Manager: Eric Sailer

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contents

Happiness isnt always an indication that everything in your life is perfect, or that things are necessarily flowing your way. Sometimes, happiness is simply the choice to see the light in everything that you can, despite how imperfect or unclear your current situation may be. Billy Chapata

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Introduction

lets celebrate!

Thank you, God, for waking me up this morning. This is a popular Black Christian adage that I say to myself every day and have heard in probably every church service Ive ever attended. The simple act of breathing is truly a blessing, and its the most basic thing we should be grateful for. If you are breathing, its reason enough to celebrate.

Most people tend to focus on major events and holidays: birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Passover, Ramadan. But what else deserves to be celebrated? In my world, anything and everything. In between those big events are lifes little moments, and they, too, are bursting with joy. When my daughter took her first steps, I baked a cake. When I finally finished reading a book that was on my to-do list for over a year, I threw a batch of cookies in the oven. When my favorite show returned after a long hiatus, I cooked the most epic dinner. Ive found that surprising your loved ones or friends with a mini celebration of LIFE is always more fun than expected.

The seed for this book may have been originally planted by my grandmother Maggie Small. Big Mama, as we used to call her, celebrated two birthdays. While she had a birth certificate with a specific birthdate, she insisted the date was wrong. And so we celebrated twice, on August 6 and August 13the date she thought was the right one and the date on the birth certificate. The joy Big Mama had, and her desire to celebrate morenot lessis a lesson we can all learn from. (Inspired by her, Ive really run with the birthday concept and now celebrate my whole birthday month , because why not?)

Most of our lives are made up of small moments, and those moments can bring us so much more joy when we take time to appreciate and acknowledge them. We all know the stress that comes with the big holidays, when stores build their displays and try to convince us that happiness and fulfillment lie in a gift. But this is different. What happens in between those big calendar events is the everyday life we livethe glorious, messy, filled-with-tiny-moments lifethat is also worth appreciating. Are you having a good hair day? Celebrate! Did you just cross something off your bucket list? Lets toast! Did your pet have a birthday? If thats not an excuse for cake, what is? Honoring those moments with a pressure-free dinner or dessert can create memories that last a lifetime.

Are you having a good hair day? Celebrate!

In the spirit of this mindful shift to celebrating life and cultivating joy, I also want this book to honor the African American experience. Part of Black survival is learning to laugh, dance, and smile through the most painful and troubling moments. From slavery to segregation to Jim Crow laws to the civil rights and BLM movementsthese experiences have steeled us into a people of resilience, strength, and power. Even our homegoings (funerals), despite the somber occasion, are filled with celebration and gratitude as we come together and remember the life of the deceased. Our joy truly comes from within, because even our everyday experiences are cloaked in being Black. Finding joy even amid pain or monotony is the way we get through things. Its our survival mechanism. We can form a Soul Train line or do the Wobble anywhereand everywhere.

My appreciation for lifes small moments was a gradual shift that took place over time. The birth of my daughter, Harmony, made me take stock of what I considered a priority. Watching her grow and change was a celebration in and of itself. First smile, first word, first stepsthese moments were as important as any holiday Ive ever observed. I started to search for more meaning and joy in everyday things. I started questioning some practices we hold sacrosanct: We keep these insanely long to-do lists and work ourselves into a frenzy, and where does it get us? I had been running on autopilot for too long.

As I started to settle into my new routine, I began to discover joy in the moments I was building rituals around: writing in my journal, creating a meditation practice, putting a pause on social mediaeven though my profession depends on it. When I started to spend less time online, I became much more present in the here and now.

Then the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit, and everyones lives changed overnight. Get-togethers, vacations, social plans were all put on holdindefinitely. We had to relearn how to live with the people in our homes. Whereas I once saw my husband for just a few hours every morning and evening, now I was seeing him around the clock, along with my mother and father, with whom we were living as we waited for our new house to be built. We were cooking three meals a day for days, weeks, and months. Date nights out were replaced by date nights in, sandwiched between folding the laundry and putting Harmony to sleep.

Since we werent leaving our homes much, we were forced to find joyful moments in the everyday thingsand in one another. Our typical holiday family gatherings became smaller, quieter affairs, with just the people living in the household. As I let it sink in how different it all looked, I began to redefine what constitutes a celebration. It dawned on me that all moments, as many as possible, in fact, needed to be celebratedand not just during the pandemic, but beyond it.

You might have heard the saying When God closes the door, He opens a window. Perhaps the silver lining of the close living forced on us by COVID was taking a step back, shifting our perspectives, and reevaluating what is truly important to us. What happens when the ground shakes beneath us? When the worldand life as you know itshifts, can you shift with it?

What I think of as a celebration has changed. Really, sitting in this moment has become more important to me. Theres always been, for me, the chase of accomplishment, but its importance has paled. Do I want to be answering a million emails when my daughter is playing in the other room and I could be with her instead? I dont want to miss these fleeting moments. And maybe instead of creating another Instagram Reel, Ill use my phone to call a relative, record my family history, and capture my heritage as I learn about my family tree. I dont want to let the wonderful moments in my life pass by and go unacknowledged.