The Joy of Small Things

by Hannah Jane Parkinson

  I enjoy spotting recurring graffiti. Far and wide across London, the words ‘Nat has herpes’ are scribbled on various surfaces, from bus stops to subways. Nobody knows who Nat is, or whether she really does suffer from such a malady. It’s been mooted that one person could not have been responsible for all instances and that it has become a copycat situation. The phrase never has the tinge of a sexist slur, rather the air of a friend taking the piss. Now it has been elevated to part of the urban fabric.

  The corporate-commissioned graffiti represents the worst of street art. But the witticisms, heartfelt sentences and subversive acts from fellow humans are a boon. My favourite from the past week? The person who had added in the female actors’ names on a film poster, when only the men in the image had billing. Thank you.

  BINGEING ON BOXSETS

  A hallmark of living in times of rapid technological advancement is the fast obsolescence of formats. VHS and cassettes lasted, at least to my memory, for aeons. But not that long after the iPod’s mass-market introduction of the click wheel – which seemed almost as momentous as the invention of the actual wheel – did that click come to be seen as clunky. The MiniDisc arrived on the scene and then left as quickly as a swimmer overestimating the temperature of a pool.

  Physical boxsets, which jostled in my bedroom with shelf space for similar-sized Russian tomes, have long since been resigned to bins in charity shops. For a while, I was signed up to a DVD-rental delivery service – which is also how Netflix began.

  Though they’ve moved into original programming, the widespread appeal of Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ (and iPlayer, All4 et al) remains their vast back catalogues of content. It is ridiculously easy to re-watch old favourites or dig into cultural blind spots. Then there are all the shows now releasing entire seasons in one fell swoop; the streaming binge-watch is the natural evolution to the boxset. It’s how I watched I May Destroy You; It’s A Sin; Normal People and more.

  There is something all-consuming about binge-watching television – and I mean that in a positive way. When you spend time consistently with characters and setting, the viewing experience is different than when it is staggered. Just as if you saw one friend more often than another you would consider them closer; characters who you are spending significant amounts of time with became a stronger presence in one’s life. The universe of that show becomes a second world lived in and not a place occasionally visited. It’s the definition of escapism. Television watched all in one go is more akin to the reading experience.

  How a show is consumed alters the viewing experience, too. Recently I binge-watched A Teacher, its one short season consisting of ten 30-minute episodes, and the intensity of rapid-fire watching suited it. I’m not sure weekly instalments, complete with cliff-hangers, would have worked so well – or even that I would have stuck with it.

  Just as the final ever episode of Schitt’s Creek aired and was lauded, I watched all six seasons of it back to back. Schitt’s Creek is the perfect example of a show with warm characters and a setting which is easy for the viewer to become heavily invested in; and spending as much time as I did in that world means I totally understand why it has become so adored, and when I finished the finale it felt like a friend moving away.

  Even so, I know that all I need to do is open my laptop and find another show – whatever genre – to indulge in, and I’ll once again be transported elsewhere …

  THE SOUNDS OF SPORTS

  Nothing pleases me more than the sounds of sports. I’d narrow it down to a specific one – a specific noise, or a specific sport – but all bring me equal amounts of contentment. Skateboarding is essentially a piece of music to me. There’s the clink of the metal of the trucks against the metal lip of a half-pipe; the scrape of the underside of the deck sliding down a handrail; the hollow-sounding roll of plastic wheels against tarmac; the thud of a trick landing. As a teenager, I used to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the original PlayStation, and I would toggle the soundtrack off, just so I could listen to these in-game sounds. Don’t get me wrong, though – I cannot skateboard. But that doesn’t matter.

  The squeak of a trainer on a gym floor, which I know others can’t bear, will take me straight back to school netball: the satisfying swish of the net as a shot pays off. And is there anything as beautiful to the ear as the thwack of a tennis ball, or the crack of a cricket bat? A shuttlecock whipping through the air? The scuttle of boot studs on changing-room floors? The heavy clonk of two snooker balls colliding? There is not. I could watch Olympic skating for ages, not for the shapes, but for the growling carving of the ice.

  I am not sure why I find these sounds so delightful, but it might have something to do with autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), the phenomenon that results in ‘low-grade euphoria’ – or, as I put it, less dramatically, ‘a nice tingly feeling’ – from various visual or auditory stimuli. I respond to many sounds in this way: hair being cut; fountain pen on paper; the tapping of a keyboard. Sometimes I try to soothe myself to sleep by watching YouTube videos of these things. That sounds weird, but I promise, these videos have millions of views and not all of them are me. There’s been research and everything.

  But the sounds of sports are special in that they can be as invigorating as they are relaxing. Rattle the crossbar with a volley and pounce on the rebound. Catch the ball on the edge of the racket and listen to the plasticky backhand-save match point. Grab the baseball with a leather mitt – booph! – to win the game.

  The only sounds of sports I don’t love are those made by people. The parents on the sidelines, red-faced, screaming, ‘Man on!’ to their twelve-year-old daughters. The awkward arguments with umpires at Wimbledon, every curse audible amid the polite silence of the crowd. The chants on the terraces – you know the ones. All I want is the roulette sounds of the golf ball rolling around the bottom of the hole.

  PHARMACISTS

  I’m sure a visit to a pharmacy is not a key event for most people. A repeat prescription. Or your hay fever is playing up. Maybe you long for the discounted perfume of pop singers, or three scrunchies in a bargain bin. The kid will eat only the squishy vitamins.

  But I love pharmacies. I have never in my entire life met a pharmacist I did not like. Is it in their blood? Is being an exceptional person part of the training? I do not know what I would have done, or would do, without them.

  I go to pharmacies a lot because I take a lot of medication. I should rattle when I walk. I know intimately the sizes and shapes of generics (Route 66 sign; hexagon; nuclear bomb) and the melodic ring of the door as I enter the church of indigestion pills, eczema creams and hair dye.

  I have written before about the joy of being a regular, and my local pharmacists are the apex. A slice of cake in a café is lovely, but it doesn’t silence the noises in my head; or calm the inflammation in my gut; or provide relief from staring at walls at 4 a.m., willing myself to sleep. I even have a yearly NHS subscription card – fancy.

  My pharmacists know me. I joke with them. (A particularly well-packed parcel of pills: ‘Can you do my Christmas wrapping?’) They accept without annoyance my keen curiosity on price gouging and patents. (‘Could you just check on the system? I’m intrigued.’)

  I’m a little bit more with it now, but a previous pharmacist knew that I would always arrive to pick up new medication on the day I had run out. Often, there would not be enough tablets left to fill the prescription, so he would advance an emergency few. He would sigh amiably and potter off into the back.

  The compassion on display is a marvel. I imagine that every single public-facing job comes with days of snappiness or tedium, and yet I do not see it in this group of people, who run their fingers down shelves as though in a library searching for a specific book.

  I envy the people of Wales and Scotland for their prescription-charge freedom; but the NHS offers great value. Private prescriptions are charged at about a tenner or more (my pharmacist: ‘Posh now, are we?’ when I handed over a private script). Please j
oin me in raising a luminous pink glass of Pepto-Bismol to the friendliest, most helpful drug dealers you will meet.

  THE MOMENT AFTER WAKING

  Each morning upon waking, before I open my eyes, I like to pretend the passing cars are waves. They come in steady rushes on the road below my window, evenly spaced by the speed bumps. If I listen with the correct balance of imagination and concentration, I am on a beach somewhere far, far from home.

  People talk of that brief, disorienting flicker that can occur when waking: where am I? A sort of GPS failure in the liminal space between the unconscious and conscious states. I love this moment. It means I could be anywhere and anyone. I am Louis’ queen waking in a king-sized Versailles bed. I am swinging into life from a hammock beneath absurd azure skies. I am stirring from a nap after winning multiple prizes, which is a tiring affair.

  Quite aside from the opportunity this moment affords for fantasy – before the day’s unread banalities come crashing into the brain’s inbox – it has other benefits. If, despite not being five, you are still prone to nightmares, as I am, then waking will offer respite; escape from whatever monster sought your head between its jaws, or the crosshairs of a gun that was aimed at you. If the dream was pleasant, the sudden tip back into reality is bittersweet. But it’s nice to languidly stretch one’s body while analysing the imaginary excursion and dwell on what might have been. You can’t truly appreciate the dream while in the dream; it’s the seconds after it that count for most.

  Of course, for chronic insomniacs, waking up is always going to be a little like dropping a pound coin down a drain. Nothing to be celebrated. So it is true that often my first thought upon waking is to go back to sleep. And if that is possible, there is joy in that, too.

  There is a different, and unfortunately all too rare, bliss in waking up to the realisation that one has had a perfect, dreamless sleep: deep, sound and lengthy. A sleep like this and I’d win the Tour de France on a tricycle.

  As it goes, I won’t know what it’s like to win the Tour, even on a regular bike. Except if I were to dream about it: in that moment of waking, when I’ll be able to feel the metal’s imprint on my skin; the taste of sweat on my upper lip. Those moments as sleep dissipates, and either the life of the dream is tangible, or time seems shaken out, taut and new.

  MASTERING A NEW SKILL

  It is 5 a.m. and the roads are silent; the air sharp and steady from the overnight respite. No fumes and clashing horns and rumbling of lorries; no exhaust-pipe mushroom clouds in miniature. At 5 a.m., everything is still, and I am alone. These are the only reasons I am out at this hour.

  You see, along with everyone else, I decided to get a bike during lockdown. I was far too late to take full advantage of the vacant streets, hence my workaround solution.

  After fighting a number of people to the death and passing a ritualistic initiation ceremony that involved fingerless gloves but about which I am not allowed to say more, I arrived at Halfords to pick up a Zelos, which I figured was good, because zelos means zeal. (There is a model called Vengeance in the same range, which I did not trust myself with.) I knew nothing else because I have not ridden a bike in almost a decade.

  ‘Starting is the hardest part’ is an acknowledged truism, and everyone recognises the glory of a silverware triumph. What people rarely mention is the sheer satisfaction of nailing the bit after the starting. Mastering the basics.

  This is a quantum leap: a sudden, tiny jump that has drastic effects. It’s the feeling of suddenly getting a particular technique or movement or step and wondering how we ever found it impossible.

  For me, this gained foothold is a greater pleasure than big achievements in areas I am already good in. Footholds is an apt term, because realising I should be letting my legs do the majority of the work in bouldering was a breakthrough. Conversely, after watching YouTube swimming videos on how to improve my tragic front crawl, I learned that the legs, basically, do very little. I can easily remember myself as a frustrated schoolgirl, transformed by grasping theories set out by long-ago dead men via the conduit of a Year 6 teacher. (I imagine the teachers share that buzz.)

  So, I am up at 5 a.m. to practise the different gear systems on a road bike and to conquer … staying on it. I am not entirely alone. There is a fox, whom I have named Dave. Dave sits and watches as I go up and down a particular street before I get nervous that my clunking chain will wake its inhabitants and move to another. Nobody but Dave is there to see me signal into nonexistent oncoming traffic. Nobody but Dave is there to judge me when I disappear headfirst into bushes. Dave watches me progress from wobbly to smooth and straight – with zeal.

  BONDING WITH STRANGERS

  I am often in agreement with Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea that hell is other people, particularly other people on a sweaty, height-of-summer bus, or in a bar queue, or talking on speakerphone. But this makes it all the more pleasing when I find commonality and shared enjoyment with strangers.

  One of the best examples of this is when watching sporting events. I cannot tell you the number of high-fives given and received with fellow Liverpool fans in random pubs – my best mates for ninety minutes, and without the lifelong lie of pretending to like their spouse. I have hugged people from every walk of life after a ball ricocheted off the crossbar and over the line in the final minute.

  The bucolic version of this is the nod-and-smile that walkers exchange as they pass, wearing bucket hats and boots, fleeces with shorts: always an outfit for two seasons at once. We smile as if to say: ‘Look at this! Nature! Not social media!’ It’s like sharing a secret, except it is hectares big and smells of pine and cow pats and not-work. I’m also what my friends call a ‘mingler’, by which I mean it is not uncommon for me to end up playing Scrabble with people from the next table over at the pub, exchanging niceties and numbers.

  There is a beauty, too, in strangers coming together in collective annoyance. The mutual eye-roll on a delayed train or the group tut at jobsworth security guards. Conversely, there is the symbiotic ecstasy of a gig encore; the drunken, raucous laughter in the loos with people whose names you won’t remember in the morning.

  Despite the stranger danger we were warned of as children, strangers can represent safety, too: the women who don’t know each other, but come together when a threatening situation unfolds; the men who step in, too; people, splashed on the front pages, who come to the aid of others in extreme danger or natural disasters.

  It is said that a measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable. I think it can also be measured by how its strangers interact: how they intersect, rub along and share spaces, experiences and moods. From something as simple as a door held open, to the stranger who pulls you by the collar from the path of an oncoming lorry.

  It might be going too far to say that heaven is other people, but I will never not love the interchanging of spirit, or the quasi-religious experiences that can be shared with someone you don’t know from Adam.

  TRAVELLING LIGHT

  I have crossed borders with nothing but a rucksack on my back. Arrived in countries with one holdall, not a scrap more. One year, at midnight, I booked a plane ticket for 7 a.m. that same day from London to Glasgow, packed a bag barely heavier than the quotidian, and off I went. I have gone to Morocco and Egypt in similar circumstances.

  Travelling is wonderful, but the downsides – with air travel in particular – are easy to acknowledge: the dragging of heavy suitcases (often with a wonky wheel or broken handle); the queuing; the waiting around for luggage – and the potential for it to be lost; the paying extra for, seemingly, everything. The poor sods rifling through their carefully folded underwear to find something of sufficient weight to remove, rather than pay an extortionate £40 surplus-baggage fee.

  Smugness is not a quality to cultivate, but I can’t tell you that it isn’t immensely satisfying not to have to worry about all of the above when travelling light. It isn’t always possible, of course – work trips, longer holidays – but whe
n it is, it’s perhaps the closest thing to feeling free. It’s a twist on that hole-in-a-sack riddle: what can you pack that will make your bag light? Nothing.

  I have travelled in the opposite situation, too. When I moved back to the UK after living in Russia, a huge, framed Klimt print I had bought in Moscow six months earlier had its own plane seat. (I didn’t buy it its own seat, but the stewards were keen on protecting it.) It hangs in my flat to this day, but it was incredibly stressful, moving with everything I owned.

  I often travel alone. It is good for the soul. All I need is: my passport; a good book or three; a playlist relevant to where one is going; a language app (if relevant); a rolling countryside view from a train window, or a pointillist expanse from a plane window; and possibly, depending on mood, an incredibly interesting seat partner from whom one learns new things.

  Because how many pairs of jeans are you really going to wear? Why take weighty bottles of shampoo when every hotel, Airbnb, or couchsurfing host will have some? Not having much on the back means one’s plans can always change on a whim, too. And, in my opinion, plans are made for changing.

  BEING FED BY FRIENDS

  I used to be someone who ate just for fuel, as some people work only to earn money.

  It’s not that I disliked food: I’ve always been devoted to English breakfasts and Sunday roasts and obsessed with eggs in all forms; prone to finding immense comfort in jam and toast or going to an Italian restaurant and ordering masses of pasta followed by affogato.