Jax Burgoyne Writes

"Fill this space with a list of people and things that you are grateful for."

What am I grateful for?  This is a very difficult thing to answer.  Not because there aren't BILLIONS of things, but because there is inevitably an implication (unintended) that 1st in list = best, and it's downhill from there.  And if I were to try to decide which to put 1st, how would I do this?  What criteria?  History, biology, now?  Or what I'm not?  (E.g. I'm grateful I'm not a refugee trying to get to the UK.)

Obviously there's the Oscar speech horror of missing someone out, particularly someone obvious, or who feels they are obvious.  I often worry about this, when planning my Oscar speeches although, more often, my speeches are just thinly veiled/outright attacks on the *&$%s who bullied me at secondary school and usually my imagination just settles with a double-handed up yours that the tv people aren't able to blur out because it's LIVE!  Mwah ha har.  (Obviously there is no Oscar anywhere near the horizon, but it's nice to daydream.)

Anyway, gratitude.  And how to order it.

Well.  Let's try going the historical route. 

Who was there first?  Mum and Dad!

I'm so grateful to my parents.  Now obviously yes, it's partly because they still make me dinner when I come to visit, and pick me up and drop me off at places and talk to me and help me through things.  But they also showed me the value of learning, kindness and tolerance* (yes, particularly the 1st - that was most overt.  The other 2 are just who they are).  

My brothers.  Tom played with me and taught me to cycle and calls me to chat about this game he is designing.  (Dad tried to teach me to cycle but he gave up in the end.  Tom did not give up.  Hurrah!)  Bob helps me feel better, counsels me, reads my stories (even though I have a feeling one or two might have traumatised him...).

And then random scatter approach:

I'm grateful my mind is getting better.  

I'm grateful the aching is (generally) going.  

I'm glad my hands have been steady the last few days.

I'm grateful for all the friends I have.  I love them so much!  They are my network, that holds me up.

I'm grateful that I have the lucky DNA of a (fairly) able mind, and strong bones and good health.

I'm grateful that I smile as I walk into work most days.

I'm grateful that I can write.

And I'm grateful that, whatever the dangers of it, my mind make stories.  Constantly.  Constantly.  I mean - it's entertaining.

​* You will have to ignore paragraph 2 of this post to accept the 'tolerance' part of that statement.

"In Neuromancer, William Gibson writes, 'The sky about the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.'  Try to create a description - as evocative as the one above - about the current sky."

TAKE 1
It's black.
(Hee hee!)

TAKE 2
I cannot see the sky.  Or not all of it.  Or not the authentic it.  Before the black is a multiplicity of grids of metal and glass, keeping us separate.

TAKE 3
You know flamingoes?  And turquoise (the stone).  I could just say turquoise the colour, but I'm trying to be creative, and also precise.  Those who know the stone will know the colour I am referring to.  (Those who don't - Google it: 'turquoise; stone'.)  

Anyway, put the stone and the flamingoes in a blender.  And soy milk.  Don't fully mix - leave it the texture of brownie before you bake it.  That was the sky two nights ago.