Inspired By...Literary Notes

Today I worked in London and Wednesdays in London mean one thing - Stylist magazine. And as I picked up today's issue, I noticed that it was dedicated to all things literary. Double yay!

So once ensconced on the tube, I delved in, eagerly gorging on snippets and opinions, greedily flicking through recommendations and wondering how many of the ones I hadn't read would be available to download onto Audrey (and when on earth I would get the time to read them).

I was just over halfway through the magazine when I had 'a moment'.

Part of this week's issue has been turned over to four authors invited to write short stories inspired by a summer scent. On the basis of Oscar de la Renta's Granada, Jeanette Winterson penned Days Like This, a tale of summer romance, of two hearts finding a brief respite from life in the implicit promise of balmy nights and days filled with salt, sand and sea. Quite a lovely thing to read on a sunny June morning.

I was nearing the end of the story when I read this:

...I know that happiness is in the small things that happen everyday and not in the big declarations. Don't say forever. Say now. Don't say I do. Say I am.

I stopped, looked up from the page and then looked down again, re-reading those words with a new intensity, determined to imprint them on my brain.

Now

I am

The small things that happen everyday

I closed the magazine, savouring the seconds of stillness that encircled me amid the crush of midweek commuters. A couple of stops later I trundled off the carriage, feeling a little lighter than I had when I boarded half an hour earlier.

Who knew that commuting could be so inspiring?