This newsletter comes to you from the pulled out sofa bed in my living room, so arranged because my sister is currently staying over. She turned 21 on Sunday (she was born in 2000, making her younger than Reach by S Club 7 - don't think about it too much or else you'll be nauseated by that fact too) and is celebrating by spending a couple of days with her ol' sis in the Big Smoke.
As someone who always fancies being one of life's more spontaneous souls but is actually biologically wired to need a plan at all times, I have, of course, been pestering her for a good few weeks now to tell me what she'd like to do on this trip, so that we don't just end up going to 27 different gelaterias (I mean…a trip could be worse, right?!) Her answer was London Zoo.
Now, what you need to know about my sister for this next bit to resonate is that outwardly, we are quite different people. Whereas I'm a million miles an hour, with a laugh you can hear a mile off and no aversion to making my voice heard, my sister is 1000 times more considered and less in-your-face. The amount of times I've heard her express what she actually wants without a caveat of “I don't mind, though” I could probably count on one hand, if not one finger.
And this is why it was doubly shocking to hear my sister yelp, whilst preparing to get off the top deck of the bus yesterday, OH MY GOD PLEASE CAN WE GO THERE with genuine child-like glee when we passed…a bulk food store.
(…it was Rebekah Vardy's account.)
Wistfully, over tea last night, she said “I just can't wait to go to the bulk foods store”, like it was some kind of once-in-a-lifetime paradisal beach. Genuinely, she has expressed more excitement for this bulk food store (like a weigh and save thing) than she did the zoo, or anything else for the matter. Luscious Sumatran tigers 10 feet away? Meh. Giant SORTERAs full of grains? Hell yeah. One of the natural's world's most incredible creations, the beautiful, elegant giraffe, casually nibbling mere strides away? Whatever. Grabbing your own oat milk into kitschy glass bottles? Pour me another one, barman. Humboldt penguins swimming before your eyes? Fine, I guess. Churning your own nut butter? GET HER THE HELL THERE.
But I adore this - amongst many, many other things, of course - about her. I love that she's so excited about something that would be conceived as, by many, a fairly mundane thing. When we think about enthusiasm, it's easy to think only of enthusiasm in the more traditional, canonical sense of inspiration, the kind that gives people their divine life purpose. (That's where the word ‘enthusiasm’ comes from - via late Latin enthusiasmus ‘inspiration, frenzy’ from Greek enthousiasmos, from enthousiazein ‘be inspired or possessed by a god’)
That's what allllll the Goodreads enthusiasm quotes refer to: titans of industry in centuries gone by, talking about enthusiasm grabbing them by the suspenders and yanking them up to heights of unknown riches. And sure, that kind of enthusiasm is great, and life-affirming, and all of that kind of stuff: but let's not forget the everyday enthusiasms too. WWAIABFSD - What would Amelia in a bulk foods shop do - you know? Protect those everyday joys too - they turn the mundane into the magnificent.
Happy birthday, Amelia! You're a legend and it's an honour to know you. Here's to the next chapter! X
