The Thing Above All Things

 

In life we all have stuff we love. I’m not talking about our family, our friends, our pets, obviously we love those above all else and before all else.

I’m talking about the thing that makes us get up in the morning, that keeps us up late at night, the thing we can’t wait for Monday, or Friday, or whenever we do this ‘thing’, for. I’m calling it ‘the thing above all things’, the one thing to rule them all. What is that one big thing in your life?

Some people love their garden, or their dog. Or they like to whittle driftwood into an elaborate recreation of Queen Victoria’s coronation. Some people paint, often beautifully. I do not. I can draw sunglasses. I can draw flower doodles. I can draw little row boats on a wave. That’s all I can draw. I can’t paint. I’m not even very good at colouring in, because I’m not good at following rules—or staying in the lines. I love art, I find it a constant inspiration, colour and shape inspires me always, but I cannot draw.

I used to sew but I was never very good at it, and I could always buy something far better for a lot less money than I could make it, so I felt bad about how much it cost me to make something that was never quite right. I used to knit, but ditto.

I tried to learn the violin, but I was useless, I made a noise similar to the sound you get when you turn the handle of a rusty mangle. It was bad.

I like to garden, but I get bored after a while. Also, I feel a reluctance to uproot weeds, as they’re flowers too, right? I mainly leave my garden to do what it wants, and feel very grateful to be able to enjoy the resulting chaotic beauty. I’m a slave to feeding the birds, hedgehogs and squirrels. I like bird-watching, but usually go into a daydream and forget to actually watch the birds, Or I feel like I’m getting in the way of them feeding or gathering nesting stuff. There’s quite a lot of nesting stuff in our garden. The birds have not yet had to resort to pulling fluff out of my cat.

I like to meditate, but I fall asleep in the middle and wake up with a stiff neck. I like to bake, but can’t be bothered following a recipe, and anyway recipes are just a suggestion, aren’t they, just one of a number of suggestions of how you could create a cake? I’ve got an oven that turns itself off when it feels like it, I’m guessing that’s not always the best for baking.

So I write.

I think I have always written. That’s what I tell people, anyway. I can remember writing VERY short stories on the back of envelopes and scrap bits of paper when I was really small. I created this book cover from a Weetabix or Cornflake packet when I was in junior school, so maybe 10? If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing, or I have just stopped writing. Or I’m trying to do something else (to make me a more rounded, more interesting person) but really, I’m just wishing I was writing.

I even got a short story out of the experience of learning to play the violin. That’s my actual violin up there at the top of the page, I never did go back to learning to play it, but I sold it for LOADS as it was quite special. You can read the short story here, if you feel like it. It’s not so much a short story as what actually happened, so technically a life writing piece. 

Have you found it yet?

Your one thing? What is your be-all and end-all?

In life we sometimes think, if I were twenty years younger I’d have a go at that. Or if I had more money, more time, more energy, if I was taller, slimmer, had a better education or had done that course…I would…

*insert dream Thing here*

I say, why not now? Why is discovery and experimentation only for the young? How many years might you have ahead of you? Do you want to waste the next twenty thinking, wow, I could have done that or learned that or gone there by now. Even if you only have days, weeks, months of life left ahead of you, do you really want to spend that time looking over your shoulder at what you could have done? Don’t miss out.

Do it now. That one thing above all other things. Don’t let fear stop you. Because what’s the point of having nothing to look back on but regrets?

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