Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Fire making is a very important part of living in our house. Without it, we are cold and so is the water that comes out of the hot tap. It takes a lot of ignition to get a lyme log to burn, you have to mix them in with the more amenable woods, like alder and sycamore. Good thing we have plenty of overgrown hedges to scavenge through. It's hard work, but these are satisfying steps to take. 411 The art of fire making is in the ignition Raising the heat from a spark in spindled bundles Sustaining the flame to burn sizeable fuel Cut from the dense hedges 412 From the mass, single branches Are shaken out. The brittle skinny ends Broken off, bunched and fixed with twine From the bulky twine roll 413 This is the satisfying old fashioned skill Of faggot making. Each one represents A future fire lit, as nights draw in and frost Thinks of appearing in daylight 414 Twigs thicken to sticks, snapped In even lengths, until we need the saw ...

My fictitious (but firmly based in the actual) day has 410 miracle moments noted now. Mr has constructed a go-cart to bring wood up from the fields, as we can't afford a quad, the ground is often very boggy and the paths are growing in faster than we can clear them. Plus, the cart is massive fun.  The ash tree at the field entrance has grown more rapidly than expected.  The wheelbarrow is still useful for smaller jobs, and the go-cart is harder to explain in four lines, hence the wheelbarrow is rolled out here.  401 Handles lifted, the wheelbarrow trundles Under the solid bay tree, under the tangle Of wild rose busy lacing a bower over An old dumped heap of empty things 402 The ash tree sapling we talked of Digging up is thickening into Firewood, the roots are Too deep for spadework 403 Boy will be dragging exercise books From his bag, ready to learn facts Processes and the sardonic Exchange of wit 404 Dog ...

Ah, the poverty idyll! This is the next snapshot from my diary. Life is simple, I’m grateful for the assistance with rent and food, there’s a beach and being tired is almost irrelevant. And I still have my dream. Of course I’m not worried about the plates! ‘September 1990 The house. We’ve got a house now. We’ve got Housing Benefit and Pauper’s Allowance. I don’t care what they call it, it feeds us, I’m grateful. I stay at home with my daughter and every time the sun shines I take her to the beach. The house is out of town so I do a lot of walking and pram pushing and carrying the shopping and the washing. We’re getting a replacement washing machine soon. I overloaded the old one but it shouldn’t have blown up like that. I’m still a sleepless mother. I’m twenty years old but too tired to feel anything about it. I get to daydream though, I still think about that big family home I want. To get in the spirit we’ve invited some of the family round for Christmas this year; just ...

Unexpected sunshine and the choice to go outside, and the windows open and fresh warm air circulating, I probably don't have to explain this section of my happy day.  Up to 400 verses in this experiment now, only 600 more noteworthy moments to find. Meanwhile, the habit of noticing things is becoming indelible and I'm digging up old diaries to find and share the formula/attitude/secret of appreciating life as it's happening and not living in a limbo of nostalgia and longing for change. Easy to say, but how is it that I can do it?   391 Unseasonal strength of sunshine Surprises everyone. A heat flourish Enchants water from the dirt, shimmer Of evaporation fuzzes over horizon lines 392 The sun takes centre sky, sets about Changing the scene, fixes a different Mood for the morning, from the Insular rain to the sprawl of ultraviolet 393 Indoors I lift each window latch in turn Push the glass open and feel the breeze Rush in like a...

I was born of average cheerfulness, and have trawled through some troughs and peaks since birth. Some lives are terrible, some lives are wonderful and most lives, like mine, pitch a bit in between. Somewhere in this process I have picked up the habit of being more than averagely happy. I practise at it, by appreciating stuff. I don’t really recall when or how I started this practice, but if I could be more specific then I could share the process, and a world full of deeply happy people is worth aiming for. Deep happiness means you come to terms with bad things- my definition of cure is ‘making better’ not ‘taking away.’ We need challenges and experiences to grow. Enough digression. So, now I want to track back and check how I got here. I don’t much care for dwelling in the past, but this is more like map making, more of an expedition. I have been keeping a diary on and off for some years, in bits of notebooks, which I am slowly transcribing. Already clear that mistakes have b...

Since I was struck, visually, by the vividness of a green double-decker bus as it rounded a corner of road, coinciding with the sun splitting through heavy cloud cover and consequently sparking the idea to find one thousand such understated significant moments in one literary day, the ability to see these moments has sharpened. I like to think that I would anticipate the bus experience should the circumstances repeat. This is my miracle mindset, this is where the Wishbone Soup attitude has lead me. It doesn’t prevent sadness or pay bills, it just makes me feel centred. I say ‘just’ because the concept is simple, it’s the practice that fouls most people up. Like realistic diet goals, it’s more about developing a healthy habit than denial or blame or any negative reaction.  It has taken effort, I do practice at this, and the 1,000 Miracles In One Day project is part of this. I’ve had the advantage of being rather poor (by Western European standards) and the luck to be incline...

I think most people relish that little quiet bit of time, when you are still all your own person, just before the work persona gets switched on. I remember being like that before going to school too, or even before going out to a party. Incidentally, the verse about the bus popped into my head, as a bus drove past, logically, and sparked the whole idea of finding 1,000 such ordinary marvellous moments and writing them all down in a chronological imaginary 24 hour period: One Thousand Miracles In One Day. 380 catalogued so far, and it's about 9.10am. There is a strong belief (in my head) that saucer shaped clouds are the origin of alien visitation stories, it's the kind of thought I have before work. 371 Feet on pavement, eyes lifted The air is getting heavier Clouds arrive in fleets Take over the sky 372 Lumps of gunmetal grey Solidify the sky; cloudlocked In the strip of free air beneath My boots tap the pavement 373 Shop door keys turn, unlock ...