SMALL THINGS / BIG THINGS

Nudged by Nora Ephron’s lists, written before she died in 2012, I spent the morning mulling over what makes any life a full one, and revisiting my own definition of the encouragement to “live every day like it’s your last.” At first hearing, this platitude can seem to incite a peculiarly stressful way to live. But I don’t think it’s actually meant to be about impulsively going skydiving, or running through an airport to confess your love for someone lest your day be viewed as a mundane failure. I think what it means to say is “do the day you are already about to do, but enjoy the things you would usually overlook.” Like orange peel, waiting, undressing before taking a shower, answering an inconvenient call from Mum. It’s an exercise that echoes the celebration of earthly everyday-ness found in Claire Nivola’s Star Child (a beautiful narration of which can be found here.)

“What I’ll miss” was an easy list to write. Too easy; a natural edit provided by its slight distinction from a list of simply “what I like.” Much harder, I found, was “what I won’t miss” — what I realized in the process (after a solid quarter-hour staring at the blank page, and with an annoyingly sentimental smile) is that even the stuff that I think I hate, that I assume I won’t miss, is stuff that bears its own charm purely because it exists on this planet and, once I leave, I will never have the experience of it again. Like Amy Rosenthal’s light switches. And so, as a coda, I will leave you with a list of things I won’t necessarily miss, yet will continue to find some partially-inexplicable, antithetical enjoyment in while I’m here.

If you feel inspired to write your own, please feel free to share by email — I would love to read them.


WHAT I WON'T MISS

Smartphones

Incendiary headlines

24/7 “News”

Mosquitoes

Bin juice

Relentless under-the-radar harassment

Uncharismatic politicians

Unoriginal politics

Tipping in America

Office lighting

Hay fever

Charger cables

Selfies in front of views that haven’t been looked at yet

Injustice

The visa application process

The concept of visas

Conversations for the sake of them

Bohemian Rhapsody

Trendy bodies

Tupperware


WHAT I WILL MISS

Take-off

Fireflies

The sound of a cork popping

Arriving on the driveway of an old friend’s home after a long journey

Thunderstorms

Spooning

The smell of coffee in the morning while I’m still in bed

How comfortable bed feels in the morning

Swimming in the Mediterranean

Neon vapour trails

The tap + rattle of a workshop with its door open to the street

The scent of onion and garlic cooking in butter

Witnessing something funny and catching the eye of a stranger who witnessed the same

Motorcycle rides

Dancing with friends

Sending post to friends

Wrapping gifts

Moonrise

Warm exchanges when no one speaks the same language

Lambs

Candlelight

Cooking for friends

Phosphorescence

The familiarity of creaky floorboards that hint at everyone’s location within a house

Mix CDs

The walk-run — always a smidge too long and awkward — towards a friend you are meeting at a train station / bus stop / airport for a long-awaited reunion, and you spot each other with a wave then have to traverse the space in between

Eating curry with my hands

The deep sleep following a day of joyous exertion in the sun

Pasta

Pomegranates

Bougainvillea

Stacks of books

The feel of old photographs

The clink + hum + intermittent peak laughter around a dinner party table (something I heard a lot of as a child, and found comforting; listening to my parents and their friends from the stairs when I was supposed to be already in bed and asleep)

Butterflies (in the tummy kind)

Shower hour in Summer (when everyone gets home from the beach, and it’s almost dusk but not quite time for apéro)

Masking tape

Country walk and pub lunch on a Sunday

Stars

Seasons

Handwriting


CODA

A lugubrious cashier

Traffic jams on rainy nights

Miscommunication

A clogged pipe that must be tended to immediately

Unexpected interruptions to whatever I had planned

The scripted exchange of a call to corporate customer service

The hold music during a call to corporate customer service

The way airport functioning is wholly dependent on, yet feels surreally irrespective of, time

A ruined roll of film

Family dissonance

Bucket lists

A tiny stone stuck in the sole of my shoe that clicks with each step

The concept of manners

Lost luggage

Chaos