The Strange Things People Do To Have A Good Day
From Gertrude Stein to Joan Didion, and Sir Winston Churchill to John Waters, it appears we all have our quirks.
Sarah Hampson
Gertude Stein (right) and friend Alice Tolkas in their old jalopy riding around the countryside.
Gertrude Stein had a routine of driving into the French countryside with her beloved partner to view cows. The American writer, poet and art collector needed to gaze upon one – the right kind of one, reportedly – in order to feel calm and happy. She would get out of the car, set up a camp stool, paper and pencil in hand, hoping for inspiration to write, while Alice Toklas took a switch to a cow to coax her into the author’s line of vision. If the cow didn’t suit Ms. Stein’s mood, off they would go in search of one that did.
(Apparently, she had a thing about looking at rocks, too.)
People do weird things to have a good day. Maybe it’s a bit OCD? And why not? There’s so much that doesn’t make sense in the world. Adults are like children – we still need a little comfort and predictability. The world’s capacity to overwhelm us never diminishes, after all. Habits tamp down anxiety over the uncertainty about what will happen – or not.
So, why wouldn’t saying hello to my glorious maple tree in our front garden – we’ve decided to call her Abigail – be perfectly reasonable? She is spread out upon the blue sky, open to anything. I admire that, and by acknowledging that generosity maybe some of it will rub off on me and make my day.
And at the end of that day, any day, no matter what happens in the world, there will always be a bath before dinner with a bar of delicately scented Roger & Gallet soap.
Joan Didion, author of the wonderful The Year Of Magical Thinking, among other books, once told me that she smokes precisely five cigarettes a day.