Glee Club

Trigger warnings are everywhere these days, and quite right too. We are adrift in a sea of noisy information designed to trigger the reanimation of whatever deep-seated trauma lives within our bones. Shocker: living in this state is not, apparently, terribly good for us. Annoyingly for those of us who (adorably) believe in free will, this is cellular, deep-seated stuff. It’s not a case of ‘cheer up, ya quivering shambles’; it’s to do with neural pathways and brain plasticity and the release of hormones. This is why, if you follow a neuroscientist on TikTok, they will most likely encourage the following repulsive activity: positive self-talk. I know! Ew! Noticing the great things in your life and being grateful for them! How embarrassing! Going outside in nature! Well fiddle-dee-dee.

Maybe, though, the idea of “positive self-talk” has been stolen from under us by the wellness industry. Maybe it’s not all sitting under a tree telling yourself you’re powerful like an owl and resilient like a boa constrictor or whatever. Maybe we need to reclaim positivity. Maybe it isn’t about denying the terrible things, but holding the lovely things in the palm of our hand for a quiet moment.

Public Service Announcement: full in the knowledge that life can be a punishing, relentless disaster; trigger glee.

I get a serotonin boost when I clean the kitchen bench. Does this fix the world’s problems? It does not. Does it declutter my simple little mind? It does.

There is something entirely wonderful about humans being in motion. I was in the car recently  with a kid in the back seat who wanted his hair to ‘stop being so sticky-uppy’ so he stuck his little face out the window of the moving car and squealed delightedly into the wind. A friend has a new bike. ’It’s a wild, incredible feeling,’ she gasped when she arrived at my place on it, red-faced and grinning. If that ain’t your style, there’s also a walking group near me comprised of women in their fifties and sixties and let me tell you they set a cracking pace. You’ll walk past and hear them saying to each other, ‘Which is fine if it’s a governance issue but that’s a matter for the subcommittee’, or ‘I think the niece got into nursing but you’d have to ask Maureen’. Perhaps the bigger, more overwhelming things feel less important when we’re in motion? Give it a burl why don’t you. Stick your head out the metaphorical window and shout-giggle at the sky.

Sleeping, recently, next to me, our small kitten sighed, squinted up at me, and moved its paw onto my leg. I doubt getting an academy award feels better as a nod of recognition than that.

Laughing with a friend has to be the point of life, don’t you think? Or one of them. Losing control of a mutual, gasping howl of laughter. Perfection.

A blank piece of paper and a nice pen triggers joy for me. I write to do lists. I map out stories (stories that end up looking nothing like the scribbled story maps). Sometimes I draw little patterns while I talk on the phone. The metaphor of the blank page and the pencil or pen feels constructive and meaningful, even though it often isn’t. Although if it feels like it is, maybe it is?

I recently walked in on a member of my family scrubbing their shoes clean with a toothbrush. This was a surprising happenstance on any reading, but particularly because fastidious cleaning of shoes is not a common feature of said person’s daily routine. Propped next to the shoes was a phone, recording this process in sped-up time-lapse mode. It was explained to me by this person (younger in age than myself) that if you time-lapse-record yourself doing a task, it is incredibly satisfying to watch it back. ‘It’s like a before and after!’ A more perfect analogy for ‘seizing on some positive among the dull and monotonous’ I could not imagine. I must admit to timelapse recording me cleaning my car. You should see me go in that timelapse. I’m so fast and efficient!

Yours will be different from mine. Maybe the blank page is an arvo in the garden. Maybe you’ve locked eyes with a superb fairy wren or delighted a granddaughter or something. Maybe you’ve sighed about the state of the world as well, and that’s okay. But wipe the bench and have a cup of tea why don’t you. Trigger glee.