- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 31/Aug 04:41

The little things

Time and again I say I’m done with people. Humans bad. I’m all in for cats, dogs, horses, capybaras and fish. I don’t go in for a lot of dystopian writing, but I acknowledge I fall into a rather Orwellian camp. I certainly agree with what he has to say about language: our clumsy thoughts lead to clumsy expression. I was in with Orwell with: “Two feet bad, four feet good.” But then Animal Farm goes the way it goes and we’re back to two feet and everything goes to hell. Life will always be abysmal if all we can ever envisage is the worst of ourselves repeating itself ad nauseam. And maybe I am an abysmalist? That’s not a real thing, nor is it a question. When I say I am an abysmalist, I mean just that. I almost always think things are terrible in one way or another. For some or others. For me or not me. Living in this column has been a strange and beautiful challenge because I try – I really do try – to find the light and the bright. So, I turn again to the little things that keep me moving along. Recently, it was this: “Just had a weird feeling wake me from my sleep. I felt like I’d stepped into sunlight like I did one day as I walked through your house on the way to your room to lime.” This is from the Saurus who has been my friend since we were 13 or 14. Gasp. Orwell cannot accuse her of lazy thinking or wording. You know that feeling, don’t you? You remember it? Even if it hasn’t happened for a long time, think of being young enough still to grasp joy and old enough to treasure it. The Saurus and I were not romantically involved. It’s not that kind of note. It’s a remembering of something that too often quietly dies as we get older. A feeling of comfort and laughter and my dad’s cherry juice. It’s the safety of being your hapless, silly self and knowing it’s ok. It’s playing the same song on repeat to the detriment of those around you. A whole generation of TT kids grew up on the Outfield’s Your Love. The opening line, “Josie’s on a vacation far away, come around and talk it over” was heard so often in my house that my sister offered to buy Josie a ticket back so she could deal with her cheating boyfriend and I could stop playing the song. Look at what I got from that note. That note from a very old friend. A friend as steeped in my past as I am in hers. So when she says she remembers feeling like she’s walking into the sunlight, I get it. We sort of lit up around each other. Not only the two of us, but that golden group of friends whom we loved and pummelled in equal measure. Last Wednesday night, the moon, as seen from the Cascade Mini Mart, was a gorgeous ivory scythe. A beautiful moon at the end of a god-awful day is every kind of blessing in my world. That, you may think, is going beyond loving the little things and making your way to grasping at micro-straws. But maybe not. Maybe somewhere in my head I was still walking into the sunlight, and now, when the metaphor/reality was sort of turned upside down, I was able to remember other joys. No, not simply joy, but much bigger, the possibility of joy. More music, same friends. Night and concerts and dancing and falling in love and falling away. I spend way too much time writing and rewriting the last chapter of a dozen coming-of-age stories. That’s when I live in the before time. Before there was more world than I knew how to handle. Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition. The post The little things appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.