Photo by Dragos Gontariu on Unsplash
Anticipation is merely a waystation for some, but for me it’s an unsung pleasure. When I look forward to something that promises to be pleasant, I feel an anticipatory delight right now, in the present moment. I’m sure the very thought of the event causes cells in my brain to produce those signaling chemicals we associate with happiness: serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin. After all, visualization is known to strengthen neural pathways, and anticipation, which can be seen as a form of visualization, must also affect the brain.
In one of my novels, the heroine is looking forward to a weekend tryst with a lover she’s been pining for. He lives in another city and it’s been weeks since she’s seen him. At the last minute, he cancels the meeting, saying he has to clean out his study. Of course, she is crushed. She realizes she means little to him. But she consoles herself with the thought that nothing can take away the happy hours she’s already spent anticipating their reunion.
I think the anticipation of future meetings is a fuel that keeps love affairs hot. When lovers cannot see each other often or easily, they spend a lot of time thinking about each other and picturing the next meeting: the gazing, the embracing, the laughter, the joy. These daydreams help brighten the intervals apart.
Some people enjoy planning a vacation as much as the vacation itself. I have read about these people, but I am not one of them. The difficulty of making choices outweighs the enjoyment I might get out of picturing myself in one city or another, on the mountains or at the beach. But for some, planning the vacation is the best part of the trip. One doesn’t get rained out, hungry or lost during the planning stage.
Occasionally when I make a meal, I’ll make twice as much as we need and put some in the freezer. How I gloat thinking that sometime later we’ll have a delicious, home-cooked meal without further labor on my part. Anticipation! Once, when my youngest son was still home, I spotted an empty casserole dish in the dishrack and suspected the worst. Scarcely able to contain myself, I confronted him. He was nonchalant. “Yeah, my friends and I were hungry and we saw this leftover casserole in the freezer.” Let’s just say he never did that again (although he might have told me, “Mom, you’ve already had the pleasure of anticipation!”).
Plans to make a person happy at some later date can also make one smile in the present. Right now, I am planning a surprise for someone in my life, and every time I think of it or work on it, I feel a surge of glee. I hope they will be half as thrilled with the result as I am now in advance! (Maybe I am really working on it as a gift to myself?) I can’t stop picturing their face at the moment of the grand reveal!
Another form of anticipation involves creative projects. With the first sentence, or brush-stroke, you are setting something in motion, and you want to see what this something will be. You can only find out by continuing to work on it. So anticipation of the final product helps propel you forward. When you start something, you can know a lot about where you’re going, but you rarely know exactly where you’ll end up, or by what road you’ll travel. Curiosity compels you to completion.
Perhaps pregnant women experience the greatest anticipation of all. “Expectancy” is a synonym for “anticipation,” and a woman with child is said to be “expecting.” Who am I carrying? What will they look like? Will they be easy or difficult? When will they let me sleep through the night? Pregnant women exist in the present and the future at once. The travails of the present (the clumsiness, the fatigue) are lightened by the visions of the future: the tiny hands, the large eyes, the first gurgling laugh.
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Those who remember my post about pockets in June
https://catherinehiller.substack.com/p/the-pleasure-of-pockets/comments
might be interested in Vanessa Friedman’s take on the topic last week
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/style/pockets-womens-clothing.html
Oh, how I love to anticipate the New York Times!
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Speaking of getting there first, the editor of an online publication in which I’ve been published wrote to say she’d have to unsubscribe from the Pleasure Principle because I often wrote about topics they might want to cover and she didn’t want me thinking they’d poached my ideas. I was so pleased! I hastened to assure her she should continue to subscribe, that all topics are up for grabs, and that only very naïve writers worry about someone stealing their ideas. The same idea can be covered many ways. It is the individual writer’s insight, style, and twist that will give the writing value.
Absolutely loving these. Bravo! Receiving them every week is a great break from the horrible news of the day. How do you keep coming up with such great topics?
I am now planning my annual holiday party, with theme, for my company. I try to reveal as little as possible until the day of the party to maximize the anticipation. Much more fun for everyone, but especially me!
Whenever I see that word, I think of the song “Anticipation” by Carly Simon. She apparently wrote the song in 15 minutes while awaiting a date with Cat Stevens. It became a commercial jingle for Heinz Ketchup during my pre-adult years. My favorite line in the song though is at the end, when she sings “These are the good old days.”