sarah eve kelly

So I’ve been tagged by CarmaSez to articulate six things that make me happy. I had to think about this for a day before I could get to it, because I didn’t want ‘When Graboid works’ to be one of them. And for any of you who have braved my 100 Random Things About Me meme, you know that a list isn’t just a list with me. It has many semicolons and parentheses. So let’s see what I can come up with.

1. See, the problem is that most of my happinesses are in the past tense. I like having eaten well; I like having gone for a walk. I like having met my writing goals, my school goals. OK, maybe my happinesses are pluperfect. But I’m not really an ‘in the moment’ kind of girl, and I’m done punishing myself for that. But, hm, the first of six things is probably baths. The kind with oil and good smells that makes your skin red all over. The kind that makes you sweat. The kind with a book that’s so good that after you’ve gotten out and wrapped up in a huge bath sheet, you go to airdry on your bed and keep reading. Preferably falling asleep at some point.

2. Happiness the second (and no, these are not in any particular order) is kissing. Who cares who’s reading this: I like it. A lot. It’s one of those happinesses that can be present, past, and pluperfect.

3. Reading out loud. I’ve never read to anyone - or if I have, I can’t remember - but I love to read out loud. The first audiobook I ever listened to was A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, and the man was a master reader. I’ve tried ever since to imitate him, probably failed parlously, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the only time I like the sound of my own voice. And the best place to read out loud? In the bath. The acoustics are great.

4. Cows. Cows make me very happy. Watching them, talking to them (I don’t often have the occasion, sadly), contemplating them. Cows are beautiful creatures, so slow and peaceful. We could all chew a page out of a cow’s book.

5. Pub nights. Not clubs, not bars. Pubs. Preferably a patio of a summer’s evening with a double for everyone (followed by another and another) and a big ashtray in the middle of the table. Quiet nights that aren’t quiet, when you’re not required to be clever but it’s fun if you are, when you’re allowed to shriek with laughter and fall on people’s shoulders and grasp their hands and give them kisses. Strange happiness for a misanthrope, but there you are.

6. Finally: people asking me questions about English history. I really, really do like that. It gives me something more than pride. It’s permission to elaborate on something I love, when generally this is what makes me strange and shitty at conversation. Usually this takes the form of friends asking me to annotate epic dramas. I remember one day years ago when a friend called and asked, ‘Hey, do you still have that Anne of the Thousand Days rental?’ I told her I had, and get this: she asked if she could come over and watch it, ‘… and if I have any questions, can we pause it while you answer them?’ I fell in love that day.

That’s it: six things. I think I broke a sweat; I think it’s time for a bath. But first, I tag:

Gretchen McNeil
Marsha Moore
Colleen Lindsay
Liz Medwid
Amy Bai
Kim Bewick

The rules are as follows: link to the person who gave you the award; write down six things that make you happy; post the rules; tag six others and let them know you’ve done it; tell the person who tagged you when your entry is up.

Till next time, if God wills it, &c &c

Something about good tidings makes me apocalyptic. I’m noticing a definite trend in this direction; I’ve had occasion to chart it, because many lucky happy things have come my way.

A few years back, I won a scholarship that was, in dimension, a bit on the lines of the Albert Hall. It was a travel scholarship, which meant that I could go to England in style, and it was a writing scholarship, which meant that my aspirations of writing novels for a living were not, for the moment, consigned to the land of idle dreams.

I spent the week after I got this scholarship feeling piss-awful, and letting everyone know it.

I used to think that I passed through this quagmire because I didn’t feel like I deserved the award. My tummy turned because I thought it was a fluke; I was convinced it was a mistake until my benefactress made specific reference to the piece I submitted.

But that wasn’t it. I’m an impressionable person and I’m not so completely absorbed in convictions of mediocrity that I can’t be pulled out of them by a couple of well-positioned well-wishers, perhaps armed with a pick-ax and a counterweight.

Here I am now: on the cusp of a finished degree, moving to the land I love (and anyone who reads this site will know that I’ve been lobbying this for years), and getting married. Tomorrow is a new day: the future lies ahead, as somebody said.

And yet I go through phases like this one, this morning, and another one, last night, during which I’m not only filled with paroxysms of self-doubt and nervousness, but (and this is true of the previous situation as well) a great boiling anger and resentment at the whole state of affairs.

I am a crazy person.

Where does the anger come from? The lassitude? The unwillingness to do what has to be done? I think it’s this: the fantasy has been taken away from me, replaced by immigration forms, savings account totting, touch-up kit purchasing, and the current, unimproved form of myself living the dream. (In my daydreams, I am always taller when my ship comes in. This is actually true.)

When potential becomes kinetic (this is all I remember from physics class, and I probably don’t remember it properly), as with the award, something is lost. I had built a lifestyle around waiting for that letter to come (in the event, it was a phone call). I imagined myself in England with the money, and I was free to imagine anything else I liked. I suppose I imagined that I was more equal to my good fortune.

And so it is today. I’ve been complaining for a while on this site that my reams of good fortune are taking me out of my element, because all the bits and pieces involved include a Sarah who doesn’t fidget, a Sarah who is lithe and charming and graceful and all the things you have to be to be a bride, an MA, an alien from the colonies. In my daydreams I was all those things, because that’s the way daydreams are.

This is only ever a short phase that I pass through, just the time it takes for the daydream to adjust itself into something else, and to adapt - as daydreams are uniquely poor at doing - to what realities allow. In this case, though, the reality is pretty fucking good. My mom always warned me: a limousine is not just going to pull up in front of your house one day and take you to greatness. But circumstances have conspired and that is more or less exactly what is happening. I’m just not sure where I fit into it.

Phew, I’m boring, aren’t I?

Till next time, if God wills it, &c &c.