Sleep the sleep of the gleeful

“Ooof”, says someone, throwing themselves down on a couch, “I’ve had it”. It’s a beautifully simple expression, “I’ve had it”, because it’s so vague and yet so thorough. It does not invite or even accept argument.  I’ve had it with this day. Had it with work. Had it with the traffic. Had it with the world. I’ve had it with you. Had it with him. Had it with all this.

At such times, the things we have not had (“up to here”, is usually the measurement) should be called to the front of the mind. They’re scant, they’re often just glimpses, but they’re crucial. The small treasures. The real highlights. Let us know praise those. This is a public service announcement. 

Consider that smell when you come home and someone else is cooking and you say “oh wow! Something smells amazing!” and the person says “it’s onion and garlic”. How great is onion and garlic!?

Consider the slow, cautious work of scientists changing the world. Inventing life-saving technology, developing new medicines, preventing diseases. Incredibly gradually, not using magic, not with ideology, but with boring old science. Consider the manatee - those kind of dopey-looking floaty chubby sea creatures. You know what happened the other day? They were taken off the endangered list. In the 1970s there were only a few hundred left. Now? Over 6,000. Still not enough - they’re still a threatened species - but people, who do a lot of terrible things, have also done this. They worked hard and were smart and they prevented a whole species of sea dude from becoming extinct. 

Consider how many dramatic metaphors are set in the kitchen. The metaphor of the pressure cooker. The melting pot. The slow burn. A recipe for disaster. Maybe stay out of the kitchen. It’s scary in there.

Consider the number of times you’ve become friends with someone not because of their values or their history but because of something you both found funny. This speaks well of everybody involved.

Consider the smiley gasp of finding an old photo you had completely forgotten. The way you murmur to yourself alone in a room.

Consider marmalade.

Consider the life-affirming sense of perspective provided by public spaces.  I know. Bear with me. It doesn’t always happen. Most of the time, public spaces are the definition of The Absolute Worst. There is something, though, usually, in an airport or a hospital or even a Centrelink office to gently remind you that there is human generosity of spirit in the world. People holding the lift for each other with a resigned smile. Someone helping two people whose map is sideways. In the children’s hospital recently, there was a man in a suit with a straight back and pointy shoes rushing to catch a lift. He was clutching a large stuffed meerkat. With their straight backs, big eyes and anxious expressions, he and the meerkat seemed related. He patted it absently in the lift but caught himself doing it and stopped. One floor up, a kid with a prosthetic leg got in. “I really like your meerkat” he said after a minute. “Thank you”, said the man. “You’re welcome”, said the kid. “Nice eyes”. Public spaces can be okay.

Consider plasticine. Dig your fingers into it in your mind. How great is that stuff!

Consider how liberating it is sometimes to be lonely in a new place. Like when you’re in a room that isn’t your own, in a town that isn’t your own, and the cars swish by in the wet night and the shadows make shapes on the ceiling and nobody really knows you and yet you are still you, possibly even more you than usual. And maybe you feel wobbly, or sad, but the only person who can move you away from that is you. So: in the morning, clean slate. You can be any version of yourself you like. You can go anywhere. Do anything. Starting, may I suggest, with a bookshop.

Consider how, of all the types of clean we fetishise, the best combination of clean is unarguably: sheets + pyjamas + hair. Sleep the sleep of the gleeful.

Consider the fact that in order to be someone’s friend, or to gain someone’s trust, psychologists say the best thing to do is to let that person do you a favour. There’s something so fragile and hopeful about that.

So maybe you’ve had it. That’s okay. Just pause for a moment and consider. This has been a public service announcement.

An edited version of this column appears each fortnight in The Big Issue. Please support them whenever you can.