Memory of snow..
Today is supposed to be Blue Monday, the unhappiest day of the year. Who says? I don't know. The Daily Telegraph newspaper thought it was last Monday. Others including a charity called People United dedicated to laying the foundations for a "responsible, caring and happy society"say it is today. People United in fact claims to be the originator of the Blue Monday annual initiative to cheer us all up on the last Monday of January. So it is this morning that I find myself at the Tunbridge Wells public library to see what Clare Grant is up to. Clare Grant is the originator of the Three Beautiful Things blog which has been the inspiration among many other blogs of Best of Now. Clare is sitting in an armchair in the library handing out blue strips of paper on which we are asked to write cheerful messages aimed at users of the library. The messages are passed to the librarians who insert them in the books people withdraw. The messages can presumably be used as bookmarks so they will probably have a reasonably long life. Clare has been asked to help because it a beautiful idea, and what better supervisor of the project than this recorder of the pleasurable incidents of daily life! I was, I am pleased to admit, quite cheerful when I woke up this morning, and, as I bid Clare good bye and battle my through the cloud of misery that one might suppose hangs over the town, I feel more cheerful still, and can even sense the cloud dispersing as I proceed on my way.
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"Have you had a busy day so far?" asks the girl in the Building Society this morning? What can you say? I am always busy. Relatively. It is one of those friendly things which I suspect people who serve the public are supposed to ask. "Yes, " I say. Perhaps she doesn't believe me. " Well, its Monday," she says. "Got to get things tidied up".
2 comments:
The story of Claire Grant and the writers of cheerful thoughts which become bookmarks is indeed a beautiful thing.
That stone lion with its cap of snow is a striking image, dream like yet clear.
There's a world of difference between leaving a detachable bookmark in a book and writing some tetchy, often pompous, usually self-serving, always pedantic comment in the margin (especially if the book is from the library). I like the idea that the remark should be judged by the highest standards - as, in fact, the book itself should be - and therefore remark-writers should be on their mettle to match language with sentiment. Anonymity allows the writer to warm him/herself with a thousand pleasing fantasies.
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