Smile

Make a list of 30 things that make you smile.

1. Books
   1. Walking into a library, or an old bookshop. Perusing the shelves. Finding the book that calls to you. Coming home and reading it. All of it. Re-reading it. Cherishing the book that holds the story you love. Re-reading again. Finding it on your nightstand remembering not only the story it contains, but the story of the book itself.
2. Walking on the beach at sunrise.
   1. Boxing day. 2010. Early rise to get back home to work. Snow on the sand. Coffee in a mug. Cold but beautiful. Heavy cardigan, hot coffee. Short walk along the sand. Sheets of ice snap underfoot, before melting onto the surface of the sand leaving perfect imprints of our feet behind in the snow white surface, out of reach of the receding tide.
3. Writing
   1. Journaling is my way of processing thoughts that otherwise become stuck in a loop, as I tend to overthink everything to minute level of detail, to the detriment of the original task.
   2. I write fiction, a vast array of grand concepts and short stories. A core belief that all creative output be tied to the laws of a single universe. It’s mostly in the form of handwritten notes, which I have been writing in journals for the past ten years. I recently started transcribing these notes, reviewing concepts and developing new ideas. My greatest ambition is to write, if not professionally, then often.
4. Drag Queen’s and Sassy Bitches
   1. Drag as a culture, drag as hobby and outlet. Sassy throwbacks, a community of love, support and protection. Pride, and confidence in self expressive freedom. Power and inner strength.
5. Helping Someone
   1. Knowing that you can improve upon a person’s life in the smallest of ways, yet that small thing can be truly significant for both parties.
6. Learning new things
   1. Learning, not to be the best, but to know. To have an insight into as much as possible and try to understand things from many angles. To know, truly know something and to make it a part of yourself and have that knowledge change you as a person.
7. Sharing Knowledge
   1. Learning is cool, knowing is satisfying. But passing on knowledge, real genuine knowledge that can improve a person’s life. It is this that marks a learned man as someone who truly understands.
8. Being around my cats
   1. Either feeling overwhelmingly loved, or completely indifferent to you. Cats have their own agenda and their own lives, they literally only want to do their own thing, and some times they choose to involve you in that. You feel genuinely wanted when a cat chooses to spend time with you, rather than sleeping in a cereal box that they knocked on the floor (to get all of the cereal out so that they could get in the box;) only to jump out when you try to pick up the box, making you jump back in shock and awe, and covering yourself in coco pops in the process. True Story.
9. Funny People
   1. Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Rikki Fulton, David Jason, Bill Bailey, Tim Minchin, Matt Smith, JP Tremblay, Robb Wells, Billy Connolly, Dorothy Paul, Kevin Smith.
10. Being around loved ones
    1. Knowing you are loved, and having a complete trust. Freedom to be yourself. Supporting them, and being supported in return. Knowing you would do anything for them.
11. Exercise
    1. Endorphins racing, body resisting, mind overcoming, body developing, improving. Powerful, accomplished, ready for anything. Alive.
12. Talking for hours about nothing
    1. Conversations which go on for hours, when it starts in daylight, and ends in the small hours of the morning. Talking about, anything, everything and nothing.
13. Video Games
    1. Hours, days so many storylines, so many challenges, so many things to collect. Content, persevering, frustration, and then finally success.
14. Staring into the eyes of a lover
    1. A most intimate expression. A smile of trust, of connection and of being content.
15. Flowers
    1. Roses, red and white. Lillies, although allergic. Anything purple, anything white, all beautiful. Unpicked, growing wild, stopping only for a moment to appreciate their beauty before moving on. Watching them wilt, retaining their beauty in death, succumbing to the end, colour stripped out, but still there.
16. Purple
    1. My first real pay check. Spent on paint. White walls, forever white, as long as I’d known them. Finally concealed, with a Spectral and Regal elegance.
    2. Purple flowers, with white roses.
17. Slankets
    1. They sap will, and are the harbingers of long naps. Best worn as a robe.
18. Painting
    1. Creating. Colour. Shape. Developing. Painting passion. Painting emotion. Watching a canvas evolve adding as necessary, building up, slowly changing coming together, many elements blending together, becoming one.
19. Being Creative
    1. Crochet, knitting, sewing, writing, drawing, building, sculpting, singing. Living. Life is a canvas of possibility, so many outlets and each creating a unique living work of art.
20. Reading for hours at a time
    1. Lying by a swimming pool, in the sun, reading until dark. Sitting by a fire, in the middle of winter in a small cottage with a blanket and a single malt. Getting lost in a story, finishing a book at 3am and driving to a 24hr store to buy the rest of the series so that you can start the next one when you wake up next.
21. Swimming
    1. Counting laps, and adding more each time you go. Pushing yourself, and working every muscle as you go. Feeling and looking amazing when it becomes a regular routine.
22. Lying in the sun
    1. Knowing you have nothing else to do, being content to do nothing. Soaking in the light, and being content to do little else. Occasionally walking into a pool or the ocean to cool down, before lying down again to dry off and relax.
23. Breaking Down Furniture
    1. Hammers, screwdrivers, axes, crowbars. Tearing down walls, or carefully packing large furniture. Watching as something that was, is reduced to the components which made it what it was.
24. Long Lies on Weekdays
    1. Knowing that others are working and you are not. Knowing you would normally be awake, and that you don’t have to be. Lying awake, yet still resisting the urge to get up. Having no agenda, other than to relax. Sleeping to dream.
25. Travelling
    1. Going somewhere new, seeing it for the first time, revisiting time after time and watching changes slowly occur. Exploring new places, knowing you’ll unlikely see them again. Enjoying the journey as you go, rather than just wishing to get there.
26. Singing
    1. Uninhibited, solo or in groups, singing for fun and for pleasure.
27. Classic Disney
    1. Hours of my youth singing along, watching rewatching, memorising and falling and falling in love with. Being enamoured with the stories, and inspired to tell my own.
28. Remembering Dreams
    1. Waking from a vivid, and detailed dream. Writing it down, and thinking on it further. Using it to create your own unique tales. Being filled with excitement when it suddenly connect with other ideas and characters.
29. Lists
    1. Making them, checking them to ensure that everything is on it. Adding things when you realise you forgot them. Checking things off as you do them. Feeling accomplished with each thing you score off.
30. Tasty Food
    1. Eating food you enjoy, comfortable, familiar, wholesome, junk. Regardless enjoyable. Exploring new foods, trying new things, experimenting with flavours and combinations, finding great recipes and going with the ones that don’t quite work.