It is hard to gauge a proper response from someone after asking them, truly, how they are, if you can’t hear the extra intel present in their voice. Typing ‘hahaha’ will never feel as good as hearing a friend bark with laughter down your ear. A question mark can’t fully replace a vocal inflection, can it? I always feel better after speaking on the phone to a pal; it’s a shot in the arm during a tiring day. Or sleepily exchanging goodnights, before my head hits the pillow, or just as a pick-me-up when feeling a tad low. What I’m saying is, make like Debbie Harry, and call me.
READING ON THE BEACH
I am writing this from a beach in Cuba. My fringe has been slicked back by the sea. One half of my face is already the colour of cheap rosé. I am lying under a palm tree to save the other half from a similar fate. And I am reading.
Reading is glorious on any holiday. Reading is glorious full stop. But reading on a beach is something special – though I can’t speak for those who live on beaches, or close to them, as to whether or not this is a pleasure dulled by familiarity. (Once you’ve lived in Oxford for years, you sometimes don’t see the magnificent limestone building, just the Pizza Express within.)
But few of us live on a beach like the one I am on. Where the sand is just about as pale as my usual skin colour and the water is so clear it could keep no secrets. Here, to crack open a fresh book, airport-bought, is to mingle the smell of salted skin and the glue binding of a bestseller. In this case, also a Man Booker winner.
There’s something about this olfactory combination that gets me every time. I might not experience it for a while, but, when I do, it’s like the old friend you can go months without seeing and yet, reunited, you are instantly comfortable.
Reading on a beach pushes a novel to its personal best. Sometimes I think it’s the juxtaposition that flexes the imagination. Right now, I am in Cuba, sure, but I’m also – when my pink nose is in between the covers – in 1970s Northern Ireland. One place I’m not? My house, and don’t I know it. It’s harder here for real life to intrude on my reading focus.
Being a nerd, I also like to take non-fiction books themed around wherever I am going. But it’s the fiction that the beach location elevates. Yesterday, my head was so far into a different decade that I hadn’t noticed the sun slide across so much sky. I couldn’t even hear the clashing sounds of beach sound systems – one of which, unfathomably, is always, everywhere, playing ‘Macarena’.
When you finish the first book, the bliss of being on holiday is that you start another right away. Time is presented to you, just the same as a mint on a pillow. When you are home, you will know these books and the trip they took by the sand in their spines and the smudged typeface and the still-sticky pages. You will say, possibly years from now: Ah, yes. Milkman. That was an amazing book. I read it in Cuba.
PATTERN
I would find it difficult to muddle through life without pattern; not in the sense of routine, but actual beautiful, artistic patterns. Once, aged eighteen and roaming around Moscow, I spotted an older man wearing an almost exact replica of the blue argyle sweater I had on. I bounded over and suggested a photograph together, and it is now one of my favourites: these two strangers beaming. Neither of us speaking the other’s language, but also 100 per cent conversing sartorially. I think of him sometimes and look at that photograph as though it is one of an old friend.
I went through a strong Pringle phase (and suffered many golfing jokes). Then there was a tie-dye era, but that was probably because I was living too close to London’s Camden Market at the time. I’m obsessed with damask wallpaper, but too poor to buy Osborne & Little, so I order samples and create collages in the hallway.
A girlfriend gave me a beautiful Persian rug which, as The Big Lebowski’s The Dude would have it, really ties the room together. I marvel at it daily. There is a blog dedicated to one man’s quest to document every single one of Wetherspoon’s carpets (there are 950), which are differently and interestingly patterned, and created on old-fashioned looms.
I love design classics: the Memphis Geometric pattern dominated the 1980s (see Mr Motivator’s leotards). Think brightly coloured, random squiggles and triangles, dizzy with the fun of it all; the Pride flag, even if Hannah Gadsby did describe it brilliantly as: ‘A bit busy. No rest for the eye.’ (The original flag was designed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker and the colours were coded. Hot pink – not in the current version – was for sex; yellow for sun.) There are the patterns nature gifts us. The glittering, shimmering sun on the surface of the lido. The insane plumage of a Mandarin duck. And, my god, what did we do to deserve giraffes, leopards and tigers?
As a kid, I was transfixed by Magic Eye picture books, kaleidoscopes and making marbled paintings. As an adult, it’s the rose windows of cathedrals and the work of Matisse. I’m not Scottish and have no blood ties to France, but is a life lived without tartan and Breton stripes really a life at all?
A FIT OF THE GIGGLES
We get the giggles. We do not choose the giggles. The giggles choose us. It is entirely the giggles’ decision as to when they will join us, and when they will leave us. There is a reason, when I am roaring with laughter, that I say: ‘I’ve lost it.’ (If I can get the words out.) There is a reason we refer to them as ‘fits’ of giggles. It does not matter the place, the time, the inconvenience – we are at their mercy. Our cheeks aching, shoulders shaking, tears streaming, nostrils bubbling.
The giggles are a distillation of pure, exuberant, atavistic happiness. Some episodes are fleeting and do not linger in the memory. Others, when recalling the catalyst, will induce the same reaction for years, perhaps a lifetime. Muscle memory; the particular muscles being those either side of one’s mouth.
Laughing is a form of social bonding. (We are 30 per cent more likely to laugh with other people than alone.) It is also contagious. It’s possible that I won’t find something funny, but the very act of someone else’s mirth will set me off.
Giggles do not discriminate. As much as I love them, they have frequently got me into trouble, or caused deep discomfort. Sometimes inappropriateness only serves to exacerbate them. I broke out at my father’s funeral when my sister and I were struggling to get out of the car. Of course, the all-over-body laughter made me weaker and I then struggled even more with the door handle. Eventually we tumbled out, creasing up.
I’m not sure I could count on one hand the number of times I have had to excuse myself from the Guardian’s daily newsroom conference because something has tickled me so much and won’t stop. It is especially difficult to compose myself when catching the eye of the colleague (or colleagues) who caused the laugh attack.
The only time I can remember when the giggles were a heart-stoppingly awful experience – it brings me terror just thinking about it – was when I was on stage at the Southbank Centre. Something, which I will not share here, triggered me in front of 1,000 people, and I spent the next five minutes sweating, squirming furiously and rubbing my palm across my face in a desperate bid to calm myself down, while praying I would not be called upon to say anything. But now, in the comfort of my own home, I am thinking about what set me off. And I have lost it all over again.
BRUSHING TEETH
A few years ago, after coming out of a secure psychiatric ward, I stayed for a couple of weeks in a crisis house. The crisis house is the steppingstone to being fully integrated back into society and one’s regular life, which for me basically means drinking a borderline obscene amount of Diet Coke and sending dozens of inappropriate gifs in the middle of the working day.
My room may have been small but the bathroom was huge, and this made me feel safe. I have no idea why. The bars on the window probably helped. Recovering from a detonation of one’s brain – I’m not sure that’s the technical term – is a lot to do with routine: I was given sleeping pills, and my usual meds were administered at regular times. ‘Self-care’ took priority. Part of this was my pre-bedtime rituals, which switched from one-too-many cognacs
and verbose texts to what I can only describe as an ascetic teeth-brushing regimen.
Of course, before this I wasn’t brushing my snappers using a twig and the ashes of oxen’s hooves (truly, modernity has blessed us), but I also wasn’t spending the fifteen minutes on my teeth that dentists seem to think we have of an evening. Except that suddenly, in that time and place, I did. I would set out my tools on the side of the sink as though a surgeon: tongue scraper; tongue brush; one of those weird double-ended picks; a frankly disgustingly expensive electronic toothbrush; a strange dye that shows up plaque; two different types of toothpaste (because why not?); floss and those interdental brushes (because why choose?).
Sure, you might say this was an attempt to introduce some control into my life, but every single night I had that feeling we all know from leaving the dentist after having our teeth professionally cleaned: when you feel as though your teeth could also produce that cartoon glint in the adverts; when you run your tongue across your central incisors and they feel as though they are made of silk.
These tiny grooming actions we perform can somehow make a big difference when we feel crap. Taking a long shower, slapping on face cream – I’m not saying that having the teeth of Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino is going to fix all your problems in life, but it does feel good. It does, somehow, make a glass of water taste purer. It does – look, I don’t make the rules – fill one with a sense of a wholesome resetting.
FINDING LOST THINGS
Grief, if I had to describe the root, is the absence of something. Obviously, there are the serious, life-changing losses: the deaths of family members or friends or pets; redundancy; relationship breakups; when Phoebe Waller-Bridge confirmed there would be only two series of Fleabag. But there are also losses with less of an impact and are just more annoying, inconvenient, troubling. And here I ask: how glorious is it to find something?
It’s the feeling of relief when scrambling around the house for keys and feeling the cold lump of metal under a letter or getting the call that a debit card has been handed in to reception. It’s the sensation of luck when the folder of treasured photographs is recovered from an exploded computer. It’s the bonus of spotting at the back of the wardrobe an item of clothing you had misplaced months ago. The reward poster that yields results. The passport in a neglected drawer the night before an international flight; panic averted.
I love, too, the delight of getting one’s hands on something long sought: an out-of-print book. A perfect G-Plan side table for a bargain price, found in a rural antiques shop, when hours of online browsing turned up nothing. Arriving at a destination, shattered, after hours of driving with an unreliable satnav.
Then there is finding as discovery – stumbling across something you didn’t know you were seeking; a wander around town leads to a beautiful statue in a beautiful square. On a larger scale, people talk of finding love, or God; even finding themselves (usually on a Thai island). But I also mean along the lines of finding out a crumbling shopfront in London is, in fact, a toy museum, open according to the owner’s whims (I’ve never been told more times in the space of a few minutes that nothing is for sale).
The truth is, I do not deal well with losing things. Probably because loss is a form of change and I do not deal well with change. Unless it’s a change I approve of, such as when Kristen Stewart started dating women. Finding something, though, isn’t always enjoyable. When reordering my bookshelves, a slip of paper dropped out of an inside cover: a love note from an ex. Sometimes finding is remembering. And sometimes that is painful or poignant, and one does not want to remember. Reminders are not always good for the mind.
Yet I have the high of a marathon runner when, with the obvious impediment, I manage to find my glasses. I will kiss you on the mouth if you spot the one free table in the pub garden. I will be smug when fingering what I think is a receipt in my pocket and then discover is a £10 note. I will be changing where I keep my passport, though. Some things you don’t want to have to find.
BEING WRONG
This might sound strange, and disingenuous, but there is an unexpected pleasure in being wrong. (Of course, this is a rare pleasure for me.) Specifically, the exact moment of realisation. There is also a pleasure in an energetic back-and-forth with a mate, when both of you are convinced that you are correct – but, unless there is some misunderstanding in communication, you cannot both be right. This phase of the argument is also quite eerie because it suggests that you are living in parallel universes. Or that one of you is incredibly drunk.
Depending on the beef, phones will be whipped out; Google fired up; other pals dragged in to take a side. Sometimes it’s just a question of whether a word is valid in Scrabble. Sometimes it’s a specific thing that did (or did not) happen on a historic night out, or the title of a long-ago film.
I very rarely enter into genuine rifts. Give me a petty difference of opinion or a dispute over a particular fact, however, and I am all over it. At some stage, it may be decided that there is no point continuing the discourse and that age-old phrase will come into play: ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree’. Which, of course, just means you will no longer discuss the issue, but will internally continue to know absolutely that you are correct. There are two other outcomes: one of you relents and lets the other have their way, despite not being convinced; or one of you genuinely concedes the point.
Of course, it’s a total smug joy if your friend, office nemesis or sibling backs down and admits that they are wrong. But, surprisingly, I also find a subtle, sheepish buzz when the penny drops that it is me who is wrong.
I can’t fully explain this, other than as a gentle gift of humility, a slice of humble pie that doesn’t taste half as bad as you might think and reminds you not to be so stubborn next time. There’s also the fact that overcoming disagreements can strengthen bonds. You may even learn something. Bear in mind, though, that it is only enjoyable if the debate was relatively minor and good-natured. There is zero joy in being wrong about something huge. Something friendship-destroying. Something career-ending.
What I am saying is: Lucy, I admit it. You won at bowling in Year 10. I can offer you only a drink and my profuse apologies. I will, however, beat you next time.
BEING RIGHT
Ah, but being right. Now isn’t that something? The aforementioned smug satisfaction, the feigned magnanimity (or perhaps actual magnanimity, if you are a better person than I am). The feeling of providing the correct answer in a pub quiz – when all queried your mighty intellect! – especially if your correct answer contributes to an overall win. It’s a pleasure which does not lend itself, I admit, to humility.
This is why people who are always right are annoying. More annoying, though, are those who think they are always right, even if they aren’t. Being right at the expense of these folk is an even greater delight than just being right in general.
Sometimes being right is down to luck – a casino bet that pays out, for instance. You don’t have any direct control over it (although feel free to go on about your superior intuition). Sometimes it’s a sense of moral superiority; in the sense of right from wrong. Sometimes, as in the pub quiz, it’s smarts. Other times it is more general talent – making the right call as a journalist, picking out the right pass on a sports pitch.
Being wrong in those instances is not the fun type of wrong parsed from banter with a friend. Knowing you have done something ethically wrong feels, for most of us, bad. Doing The Right Thing, however – handing a wallet in, being there for a friend – feels good. Likewise praise from your boss because you have excelled at your job.
These are times when being right gives one a spring in one’s step, puts a smile on one’s face, and perhaps helps you feel sheepishly proud.
You don’t want to be right all of the time, though, because then you wouldn’t appreciate it – and you wouldn’t appreciate those very specific elements of being wrong that can also amuse. Plus, you would never learn anything and that would just be awful. No,
no; that wouldn’t be right at all.
RED LIPSTICK
You can spot a baller woman by the fact that she wears no makeup, not a slick of it, except for one thing: a bold red lip. A lot of power women do this and, as with fashion designers who – maybe unexpectedly – seem to wear only black basics (roll-neck sweaters, trainers), it displays a simple self-assuredness. These are women who Get Things Done.
I am one of the women who often goes makeup-free aside from a red lipstick. In my case it is more down to laziness, losing eyeliners and mascara and being exceptionally time poor. I can state with more certainty than Einstein’s theory of relativity that I am not in the power-women clan. The thing about a red lip, however, is that – precisely because it is the look of those who have their shit together – it instantly elevates the rest of us. It also signals that you have made an effort, even though that effort has probably taken under a minute.
Everyone suits red lipstick, whereas other shades can wash out complexions, or even terrify; think Fairuza Balk’s purple slash of a mouth in The Craft or when people attempt quirky orange. Crimson colouring also used to signal a plump, sexualised mouth; Marilyn Monroe, for example. Red was the mark of the femme fatale. The sexy cherry tone of Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks (and the seductive tying of an actual cherry knot with her tongue). Rihanna’s scarlet pout as she leaves the club, wine glass still in hand.
But now the red lip can be a little more utilitarian. Refreshingly, it is also something that draws the attention and complements facial structure. It is not designed, as with concealer or foundation, to hide. It is the lipstick equivalent of heading the boardroom meeting or walking into the party, shoulders back, chest out. It is also an affordable, accessible slice of glamour.
The Joy of Small Things Page 4