#60 - Plan_C - In the Mood for Gratitude

Things to be thankful for.

Mindful mental health frequently lauds the practice of keeping a gratitude list. This conjures the kind of image where an outrageously gorgeous woman in her beautiful giant bed, notes some thankful notes in calligraphy, wriggles her toes in satisfaction and drifts off to gracious sleep.

I mean As effing If.

But there is always something to be thankful for and the practice is a sound one. So, here are some of mine.

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Thank you to my friend Mike who manages to make the most erudite and succinct sense of my work and life in a way that makes me actually note down what he says on little post-its ~ Thank you for the little deli at the top of the high street who gave me candied pecans when I dropped mine even though they were like £4.50 and it was my fault ~ Thank you for driving, I have missed it in this city of mine and it is a joy to be driving by the sea when I visit home home ~ Thank you for the chocolate bit at the end of a Cornetto ~ Thank you for the good people who keep making episodes of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you are weird and wonderful ~ Thank you specifically for Danny DeVito ~ Thank you for the poetry of Catherine Cohen and Tim Key ~ Thank you for deep dish Chicago style pizza but only once in a while when I need the treat on 8000 calories ~ Thank you to my body for carrying on despite all the punishment and self-loathing I put it through, it is still truly a baffling thought to know that I am a bajillion pounds worth of medical equipment walking around and all I really do is drink sour drinks and kvetch over half-hearted salads ~ Thank you for next-day delivery ~ Thank you for the tech people that mean I can cast my phone on the TV when I can’t be bothered to remember my Prime password, truly you people are doing the work of the Lord.

Thank you for 6 Music keeping me sane ~ Thank you for the people who make weird art and keep expanding the horizons when the world wants to make you a productivity unit ~ Thank you to the tireless activists that make me adopt a new word every 6 months that helps me to acknowledge an experience outside of my own while also saying, yep, this is fine I see you and we are both fine. I like that ~ Thank you for Ebay and the 2010 designer clothes that nobody wants anymore that I buy for £12.25 ~ Thank you to every man who has kissed me and meant it, dreamy ~ Thank you for new notebooks and black felt tip pens ~ Thank you for everyday kindnesses like holding the door and picking up your dropped gloves - people are still decent despite what the internet looks like, I know this.

Thank you for sending flowers ~ Thank you for patience when I can’t make the maths work, I understand conceptually but have idea how to express this in (shudder) Excl ~ Thank you to all of the people who have let me talk myself in a big circle and conclude with nothing much at all. You are saints. SAINTS. ~ Thank you for rose and oud candles ~ Thank you for people that bring me their weirdness but own it, you are the best ~ Thank you for app limiters ~ Thank you for M&S food hall keeping me alive even if it just that big salty jalapeño corn sometimes ~ Thank you for people who take good photos ~ Thank you for hope ~ Thank you for the blur background on Teams.

Thank you for humility, even when it hurts a bit ~ Thank you for accents, especially the ones I am good at of course ~ Thank you for London being a city full of parks, or maybe that should be a thank you to the Victorians and their promendading and fresh air obsessions ~ Thank you to person who made tapas a thing and all of the “picky tea” variations that make me food happy ~ Thank you for Stacey Dooley’s This Is My House for making me laugh so much recently ~ Thank you for halloumi, black coffee and clean sheets ~ Thank you for the makers of the Who?Weekly podcast who talk to me twice a week and are my friends despite not really knowing them. The joy of listening to Americans talk about Gemma Collins is simply The Best ~ Thank you for suitcases with 4 wheels ~ Thank you to the genius who put salt in caramel and ruined all of our palates forever ~ And a sincere thank you to you for reading this newsletter, I am incredibly grateful for your time, kind words and messages over the past 60 editions of me talking froth and nonsense and telling you to buy dresses and read this thing. This will be the last Plan_C newsletter. It is time for her to retire and go live a quiet life and finally learn some basic grammar rules (ha) and learn to write some new things.

(AMaA)

love

C x