HANDWRITTEN LETTERS
I used to have a pen pal, as a pre-teen. She lived in Spain. We would write to each other on embossed paper, weighed down with elaborate stickers.
The letters smelled of perfume or sweets. They came in the most exciting envelopes I have ever seen. Red-and-blue borders. A little logo of a plane and AIR MAIL or PAR AVION on them.
The men in the Spanish stamps had impressive beards. Usually there would be multiple paper stamps and then circles of ink on top of those; a busy little corner of navigation. The envelopes from my pen pal were cream, the ones I bought from my local post office were a pale blue, the same shade as my short-sleeved school shirts.
Nothing exciting comes through my letterbox now. There is nothing with that inky, intimate thrill. Bills (despite the fact that I long ago requested email statements only), not only my own, but those for the tenants before me, and the ones before them. Lucky me! Leaflets for kebab shops, though I am vegetarian. Sometimes folded sheets from estate agents, which sycamore down to the tiled hall, inquiring as to whether I want to sell my flat which is not, in fact, my flat. Hospital reminders, which mostly arrive after the date of the appointment, PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL written on the envelope. The things I am fortunate to receive, both expected and unexpected, are books – secondhand ones I have ordered greedily online, but also the surprise thud of proof copies that publishers send me for review.
Occasionally a love interest will send me notes, written in beautifully cursive script – as is proper – with small gifts enclosed. A healing crystal, once, after I had admitted knowing nothing about such things. Postcards, wittily annotated. But sifting through a pile of letters and recognising familiar handwriting is a now an all-too-rare thrill.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate modern communication. WhatsApp banter and voice memos are fun. Phone calls I enjoy more and more. But text, email and chat windows do not have the personality of looping words or near-indecipherable scrawls. My father used to write me absurdly long letters – polemics way too complex for an eight-year-old to parse – but at the end, he would tape a few strands of the dog’s hair and always signed off with a drawing of a paw. I looked forward to these letters so much.
Anyway, the address of Faber’s office can be found on their website. Just saying.
A CLEAN HOME
There are many variations on the maxim ‘tidy desk, tidy mind’. And, though I am somewhat bastardising Newton’s third law of motion here, an untidy desk should therefore equal an untidy mind. While I am not sure of the causal relationship, I definitely have both of those.
To avoid becoming a local newspaper story of a hoarder, photographed surrounded by copies of the same local newspaper with previous stories of hoarders – a sort of recurring Droste effect of hoarders, if you will – I practise tidiness. I find it very boring and, though we all find many things boring, I actually take medication for it. My brain never has waves, but storms. So, things that bore me I find almost impossible to do. Setting up a direct debit is one of the most difficult things in the world for me, although it takes approximately four minutes and can mean the difference between receiving a court summons and not.
I used to kick the idea of tidying under the bed; shove it to the back of the wardrobe. Shunt it into another room. Throw a blanket over it. But while I am not yet fully reformed, then I am reforming. Because I have learned that a clean and tidy home is one of the most happy-making things. It is still pleasing if someone else is responsible (a professional cleaner, a partner, etc), but actually doing the graft and then living with – in the best sense – the result, is a feeling I love. I feel genuine pride when a drawer can slide smoothly into my desk rather than jamming, overstuffed with papers. Or when I know I am sitting on my sofa, minus 9,000 receipts and corners of Doritos between the cushions.
I don’t understand how cleaning has become a popular genre on Instagram, or Mrs Hinch a bestselling phenomenon, but I have watched certain stain-removal tutorials on YouTube. There are entire forums full of tricks on how to clean windows without streaks, passed down through generations.
I still find cleaning dull, but once I get into it, at least I am fully focused on how fragrant the finish will be. Shakespeare was correct: all that glisters is not gold. But I’m content if it’s just my chrome tap.
The process itself does have some advantages: doing things with one’s hands is a great distraction. I simply don’t have the capacity to stress about a pandemic, or Donald Trump possibly winning a second term as president, when I’m cleaning in between floorboards with a cotton bud. And there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write – in every sense.
FAVOURITE SONGS ON SHUFFLE
Most people have favourite songs and the majority of the time, we hear them by our own hand. For the most part, I don’t agree with the sentiment that one can play a loved song too much and ruin it. I have a rapacious attitude to things I take great pleasure in, and though we can fall out of love with people, places and things, it is rare for me to get sick of a song. (Conversely, I do believe in the power of the grower.)
Songs become favourites for various reasons. Perhaps a track is tied to a memory. Sometimes it is the craft of a near-perfect work. Maybe it is impossible not to dance to. People have favourites that might not induce happiness but provide some other emotional release. It’s possible the lyrics are extremely relatable. Frequently, it is a combination.
With the advent of new technologies, many of us listen to music in a medium that would have been unrecognisable not long ago. There is a healthier market for records than one might expect, due to a sort of faux nostalgia from young people who were not around for their heyday. MiniDiscs (lol) and the cracked jewel cases of CDs are, for most of us, no more. Streaming rules; I am not sure Gen Z would understand ‘MP3’.
But the feature that has transformed us most as listeners is shuffle. A favourite track coming up on shuffle is the roulette ball landing on the correct number – but as though someone else had chosen it for you. Shuffle is the equivalent of a DJ dropping a banger. I really don’t want to say that people ‘throw their hands in the air like they just don’t care’, but, well, they do. Now we can have that similar unexpected joy via earbuds on the commute to work, or when sweating on a treadmill, providing an extra kick of energy.
Sometimes a good shuffle isn’t as random as it might seem: algorithms pick up on the songs we appreciate most and, like a dog being trained, the shuffle alters its behaviour accordingly. It isn’t that a song’s sudden hello hasn’t thrown me into the past and elicited stealthy tears (I don’t want to talk about it), or a song I hate hasn’t sneaked its way in when I’m listening to a suggested playlist.
Turning on shuffle is worth the risk: to hear the opening thrum of a classic that makes the heart beat faster, your smile grow wider and a shiver run down the spine.
BUMPING INTO FRIENDS
Few would deny the awkwardness of bumping into someone you’d rather not. Not even, necessarily, somebody you dislike: perhaps it’s a colleague on the bus, and you are tired. Or it’s a friend of a friend; likable but loquacious. It’s an ex. Oh god, it’s an ex.
But the discomfort of hoping your neighbour from four years ago doesn’t notice you in a doctor’s waiting room can be matched only by the pleasure of a serendipitous meeting of an old acquaintance walking her dog or – this happened to me – spotting a school friend, by chance, on the other side of the world.
These days we have more means of communication than ever. And yet, often it can feel as though we are living through a time of scant true connection. We are always in touch. But that’s it, really – just a touch. A grazing of interrelation. A cycle of hi-and-bye. Read receipts, but not necessarily a taking-in of information.
What a joy, what a bonus, to run into someone one hasn’t seen in an age. Someone with whom drinks have had to be rearranged and postponed, seemingly in perpetuity. It’s like finding a fiver, except you know the person on the note.
I love people.
I do. (Not all of them. Some of those who sit on green benches at the moment, in particular, I would be less keen to share a lift with.) But there are many people in my life with whom I am thrilled to share encounters: core friends, or those on the periphery. And when it is people I haven’t seen in a while, whom I regret falling out of contact with – well, it’s almost a miracle. The universe gift-wrapping a moment.
Before mobile phones, even arranged meet-ups were a kind of bumping into people. Meet in this place, at this time. Scanning the crowds outside the cinema or packed bar, at 1 p.m. That brief anticipation of seeking recognition rather than a text reading: Here.
Sometimes, I lie awake at night and wonder where certain people are at that exact time. My first love. The clan of amazing people I lived with when I was abroad, who took me in and fed me pelmeni. What are the chances of suddenly being in the same location, at the same strike of the clock?
The distant cousin of the unplanned meet is realising that you and another will be in nearby places at similar times and deciding to slightly alter itineraries to meet in the middle. But it’s even better meeting in the middle when neither of you had any idea it was the middle. See you soon. Hopefully.
A SHIMMERING REFLECTION
Humans are both vain and insecure; in fact, two sides of the same coin. Perhaps because, too often, for me the latter outweighs the former, I don’t love looking into mirrors. I do, however, love reflections.
Some are shimmering, dancing: the light that bounces from lido water as one cuts through it; the way a sea, in the distance, is studded with diamonds. At home, clearing out an old chest, I found a miniature mirrorball. I have no idea where it came from, but as I placed it on the floor, intending to discard it later, the sun streamed through my window and threw bright yellow squares all across the room: the walls, the ceilings, the fireplace. I kept the mirrorball there. Every time it is sunny, the room is lit up. It is stunningly beautiful and I appreciate it each time.
I have written a whole other piece about riding the night bus as, if not a cure for depression and insomnia, then a distraction, and to smuggle in some human contact in the form of the brief interaction with the driver. When the windows are black in the small hours of the morning, it is possible to see out of both sides of the bus at the same time; for neon signs that I have never noticed in daylight to catch my attention even if I am looking elsewhere. It’s dark, yet you see more.
Occasionally reflections are not so benign. I have a memory that makes me laugh out loud and, at the same time, burn with shame. About to turn the corner to meet a friend on a windswept day, I quickly crouched down to check my reflection in a car window – before realising someone was in the car, now looking askance at my looming face. This happened to a friend, too, when she was appraising her outfit in what she thought was an empty shop front, only to have a builder wave at her.
The thing about reflections is that, often, the clue is in the name. If I am looking at the surface of a lake, say, I often find myself in deep thought or concentration on the past, or the future, or all time in between. I’m not sure, but I get the feeling I am not unique in this. There is something captivating about this trick of light and science. Something transcendent.
Except for having to close the curtains to watch a television or laptop. That’s not transcendent. On reflection, that’s just annoying.
A RUNNING HIGH
It’s rare that someone looks forward to exercise all of the time – even if one enjoys playing sports (as I do) or can barely remember the direct route home from the office because they always stop off at the gym first. Even professional athletes talk of wanting to stay in bed and skip training.
I used to do what I call – many apologies – ‘gym ‘n’ swim’, which is what you’d imagine. I never did one without the other, because the opportunity to cool down in the water after time on the treadmill or bike – and the strenuous activity of watching others lift weights – was too inviting. Even if my shoulders ached with fatigue and I only did a few laps, I felt so good afterwards. I don’t like to write that because it will annoy plenty of people, just as when runners told me about the ‘high’ that running gave them, while it gave me the sensation that my lungs were made of concrete. What is this high, I wanted to counter. Where does it hide? But a couple of friends wrote books about it, and it felt rude not to give it a go.
I am still not good at running, which is slightly dispiriting to admit. But when I crossed my first 5k finishing line after taking it up again, I felt elated. A short distance, yes, but it’s a hard slog when you feel sick for the duration. It was almost as though the redder my face, the happier I felt.
I could talk about endorphins here, but I am not going to because people talk about endorphins too much. I want to describe the effect without the science: which is the appreciation and wonder of the body. Not the shape or size or extent of its ability, but rather reaching its full potential – or heading that way – whatever its limitations. Starting to move it in any significant way, and regularly, is the hardest part, and I admit that I am, at present, at the point of having to restart. But I know it will be worth it; that – conversely – after working my legs until they’re heavy, I will have a spring in my step. Team sports add an element of social pleasure and the reward of potential triumph.
No doubt there are people sitting at home with icepacks pressed to strained glutes, or elbows in slings, who are are thinking ‘never again’. But I am sure they will go back, like besotted lovers, to the thrill of a pumping heart. Or – fine, I’ll say it – those glorious endorphins.
AN OPEN FIRE
I almost die every time I see the final scene of Call Me by Your Name (three times and counting): it’s a four-minute fixed camera shot in which the lead character sits in front of a crackling fireplace with tears brimming but not quite escaping, a lip bitten as he silently contemplates his first, and lost, love. Maybe I have made it sound cheesy; it isn’t.
This scene would not have worked if, say, it had been the same character staring forlornly out of a window, or stroking a battered photograph kept in a wallet. Fires can be pure poetry.
Each year, when I head north to the family house for Christmas and New Year, the thing I look forward to most is stretching out in front of the fire alongside the cat; his belly hot to the touch, his chin turned upwards. In the curves of the brass fender, the Christmas tree lights reflect in blurs.
Like most writers, I have zero practical skills. Except for one: I can lay and light a fire. This comes from observing my mother doing origami with old newspaper pages, cross-hatching logs and kindling, and picking up and setting down efficiently sized bits of coal as though they were priceless gems, with a set of delicate tongs.
One January a few years ago, my then girlfriend and I rented a cottage by the seaside in Deal, Kent. While my partner went to collect a food order, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on the fireplace. When she returned, sodden from the rain and carrying Tupperware filled with chicken tikka masala, the flames were bold red and orange and rippling. We ate, played Scrabble and scratched her terrier under its ears.
I now live in a flat that has fireplaces in two rooms, and I am looking up the telephone numbers of chimney sweeps. There is a local firm that has been run by the same family since 1860. The fireplaces are beautiful things: just one can add 5 per cent to the value of a home. There is a downside, however, and that is the environmental impact. At its most extreme: the pea-souper smog of 1952, which led to the Clean Air Act. Real fires, then, are recommended in moderation.
But fake ones that have to be plugged in and switched on won’t do, either. Or, even worse, digital fires on television screens. I don’t have the same objection to wallpaper of woodlands or plants but, to paraphrase John Waters, if you go home with somebody and they have a DVD of a home fire, don’t fuck them. Home is where the hearth is.
CANCELLED PLANS
Someone once told me that when you are first invited to something, before committing to
it for a future date, you should ask yourself if you would want to do it that same day. I often find this is good advice. If you would dread it in three hours’ time, you are likely to dread it in three weeks’ time.
All too often, however, we say yes to things we have no or limited interest in; networking events; reunions; ‘enriching’ experiences. Or perhaps there are things you want to do – meeting up with friends; theatre trips – but, on the day, it is raining, or you are exhausted, or there’s a television show you are addicted to and cannot wait to finish. In any case, the important factor here is: you’d rather not go.
The act of cancellation looms. Do you lie? ‘I’m afraid something has come up’ (i.e. being curled up on the sofa has come up). Do you convince yourself the head cold you have is a much more serious ailment? Are you honest, but feel guilty and flaky? It’s an anxiety-inducing conundrum. Nobody wants to let a person down. But also: nobody wants to travel fifty minutes across three boroughs to go to a baby shower.
This is where, if luck is on your side, a truly glorious reprieve is granted: the thing you do not want to do is cancelled. It is the social-life equivalent of gearing up to dump a partner only for them to get in first. I have genuinely felt a thrill when receiving a text full of apologies from a friend who can’t make a one-on-one rendezvous when I have been sitting at home trying to gee myself up to head out again for the evening. (Nothing to do with their company; everything to do with laziness or malaise.) An added bonus of being cancelled on when you secretly welcome it is you get to look extremely magnanimous in response. (Though perhaps you are honest in your shared relief. I have admitted to it before to soothe guilt-ridden friends.)
The Joy of Small Things Page 13