When I was much younger, and the world much newer, I kept a small notebook that I titled,
“My Little Book of
Quotes and
Not-so-quotable
things
and ideas and
sayings
and little
idiosyncracies
of my
head.”
The book was about 3×4 inches, covered in maroon brocade with an Asian theme–a novelty at the time, but not novel to me. My mother and grandparents were Chinese immigrants from Vietnam, and every time we’d visit my grandparents in San Francisco, a trip to Chinatown was in order.
Though I haven’t been there in years, I’m sure I could still locate both the best candy shop (near the park with the pigeons) and the shop with the giant Chinese dragon spiraling down from the ceiling, two of my favorite stops. The latter is probably where I’d picked up the book, and it became home to all the ideas that my teenage self deemed important or funny.
I thought of the book this week, when, standing in the garden, admiring the zinnias, I realized that for the first time in my life, I had zinnias. Zinnias were number 5 on the “Things to Do” list that I’d stolen from a magazine article and recorded in the notebook. It’s on the page just after the gag-worthy, “Never B#, Never B♭, Always B♮.”
It’s been years since I thought about the list, and I wondered whether, along the way, I’d managed to check off any other items. I remembered something about having a chartreuse fuzzy snake. Check.
So I dug out the little notebook, whose cover is now fading, pages yellowing. I decided I liked my younger self after reading the first two entries:
Evelyn slapped Raymond on the back with a laugh. “You must be starved, old friend. Come into my apartments, and we will suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.”
– from the Mummery, by Love Ananda [and the liner notes of Ray Lynch’s ‘Deep Breakfast’ album1]
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try dropping in another coin and kicking the vending machine.
– from I dunno
It took a bit of page turning to find the list in question, and for a minute I thought I’d misremembered the whole thing, but here it is, an 80s kid’s guide to happy living:
Things to Do
- Take off your shoes, wiggle your toes, and contemplate _______.
- Run through the sprinkler. You can always make it look like an accident.
- Blow on dandelions and make them feel needed.
- Buy a new picnic basket. Inaugurate it on a Saturday afternoon with sandwiches, carrot sticks, chocolate cake, and frisbee throwing.
- Plant zinnias. You don’t need a reason.
- Lie out on the back porch and imagine your patio umbrella is a palm tree.
- Go to the state fair, county fair, anywhere you can win a chartreuse fuzzy snake.
- Buy a balloon. Find a spot and just let it go.2
All in all, not bad advice. And now that I have zinnias of my own, I thoroughly believe that everyone should have them. Every day, they make my heart bloom with their outrageous, deep ochre and fuchsia petals.
I love all the plants in the garden, but none is as insistent as the zinnia: Look at me! I’m beautiful. Stop for a moment and notice.
Why didn’t I plant them much sooner? It’s not as though I needed a reason.
And so I’m off to find a picnic basket.
- Listening to THAT again is a trip.
- Please don’t do this. Balloons don’t biodegrade. Might I suggest large bubbles instead?
