Toast and Beryl
I was walking down the street the other day and I met a very small child. I was chatting with the child’s parent - a friend of mine - who had stopped me as I dashed past, and we were doing the thing where we had to move our conversation off the footpath so other people could pass. I realised, after a while, that I had not yet engaged with the little girl properly at all, so I asked her a question, which she answered in that way children have sometimes of speaking to adults as if to say: I will indulge your frankly dull question with an answer but mostly I shall watch your face with a look of mild disdain. I thought perhaps this would be the end of it but then she asked me something. “Pardon?” I asked her and watched a slight look of irritation cross her face. “I said”, she shouted up at me, “Are you on the way to somewhere?”
It seemed like an innocent enough question. It could have meant “were you just dashing past until my mother yanked you by the arm out of your trajectory into that shop over there to buy a lettuce and some milk?” Or it could even have meant, “Hey! Lady! Please be on your way!” The intensity on the child’s face, though, and the slight formality of the shouting, made the question seem somehow profound. Am I on my way to somewhere? And of course the answer can only be: always. But also: not really.
This is a Public Service Announcement: we are always but not really on our way to somewhere. Look back at any letter, email or message thread from a friend when you were updating them on your life and you will discover: you were on your way somewhere but you were also exactly where you are now. Perhaps, then, the secret is to be watching, always, the things that you’re seeing at the moment, enjoying them for what they are, rather than second-guessing what they might become. Small people (even the intense wizard I met in the street) are very good at this. They run into a field and find hiding places, cubbies, swords and forts.They forget about time and place and social mores. So look around.
Find the best thing and the worst thing and the thing you would find the hardest to explain to an alien.
Find the most beautiful colour.
Find the best view.
Can’t find a view? Tidy a desk. Wash a window. Rearrange a cutlery drawer. Transform the present in a small but important way and see how we’re hardwired to respond to things like this - we can’t help it. We really are that simple.
Test your brain. Read a book. Do a sudoku. Tip a 500 piece puzzle out on a table and start from the start. Focus your brain into a whole new dimension.
Watch the world around you. Watch the people. Watch how people communicate without using words. See how an eyeroll makes a friend throw their whole body back and laugh and laugh. See how a friendly touch can undo a sentence completely. “Dianne, don’t you dare. I’ve got this I’ve got this NO PUT IT AWAY!” isn’t quite the act of aggression it seems when accompanied by an affectionate sideways hug and a slight wink at the barista from someone called Beryl.
Look up. People who look up are ninety percent happier. Not an actual statistic, but very hard to deny I think you’ll find. Up is where you see the sky, and trees, and birds, and people on their balconies playing guitars, and sometimes hot air balloons and sky writing that says stuff like KAREN WILL U BE MINE. And also aeroplanes full of people who are not you, who are on their way to somewhere, but who are also just having another day in their lives.
Sometimes, where you are right now isn’t very nice at all. Sometimes it’s hard and sad and confusing and frustrating. On those days: find a thing. Doesn’t have to be a big thing. Doesn’t even have to be a thing you care about, but there is always something. A person being nice to someone in a supermarket. A song that takes you somewhere else. A donut. A bath. Toast.
This is a Public Service Announcement: doesn’t matter where you’re going, or what happens next. There’s always toast, and Beryl, and a nice tidy desk.
All these columns first appeared in The Big Issue.