Friday 21 August 2015

A Toast to Being Happy in Small Ways


Having made the choice in the previous post, not to make a bucket list or a will and just to be 'happy in small ways' ,  as Edith Wharton advises, I've had to work out what that means.

  • Does it mean being glad, when your toast falls, that it doesn't land on the buttered side?
  • Does it mean appreciating what you have (the fact you have toast to eat and a toaster)?
  • Does it mean savouring what your senses bring to you like the smell, taste, texture and appearance of the toast...even the sound of it popping?
  • Does it mean remembering good times, like the memories of your Gran using her old fashioned two sided toaster?
  • Does it mean trying new things, like going camping and making toast on a campfire, that's smokey, half burnt-half raw but perfect because you are so hungry and its all new and can only get better.
  • Does it mean finding the funny side to things, that every child will at one time, like you did, answer when asked that question, the same answer you did. Q: What do you put into a toaster? A: Toast ( No bread silly!)
  • Does it mean enjoying learning, everything we do in life, from how to use the telephone to homophones - like how we can make toast and make a toast.
  • Does it mean trying to have a greater understanding of life like how toast can be a metaphor for how we can be 'happy in small ways' (see above)?
There is something about toast. We have it at every session in our youth centre. It's a quick and easy way to take the edge off hunger and makes the place smell wholesome and it creates, I hope, an association with warmth and security. Comfort-food does as it says.

(This is probably not the time to mention the time we played a prank on one of the workers and convinced him to use toast for table tennis training - bizarrely it worked. But if you do ever hear of 'table-tennis toast' , you know where it came from!)


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