Day 29 - Good Vibes

 GOOD VIBES

Prompt - Good Vibes : What makes you smile?  What makes you happy?

So many happy memories, so many moments of joy.  And across the past decade so many of those moments came from music gigs, or comedy shows, or plays or sport or the shared experience of watching a film in a cinema.  Then 2020 came and those sources of pleasure were denied us.  No euphoria at the crescendo of a Lau composition.  No stuck on grin and aching chest after a Stewart Lee gig.  No sense of wonder at a Traverse play or a Mike Leigh film.  No shouting myself hoarse as Darcy Graham scores the clinching try against Glasgow.  

No complaints though.  The pandemic is here for now, will one day be gone, and those pleasures will return.  Meanwhile so many artists have found diverse ways of sharing their talents online, often creating an experience that's near live - but never quite.  There is no substitute for mass participation, for being part of a crowd, of the performers feeding off our reactions and making us feel a part of their world.  

Instead we have, for now, to lower the bar of our expectations, to seek joy where we can.  In the small things, in finding excitement in the mundane.  So it was yesterday.  

Edinburgh's tramworks continue, will keep going for another two years yet, extending the line from the city centre out to Newhaven.  The work, and the major disruptions it brings, have been with us for a couple of years already.  A few weeks back they announced that the first rails had been laid, outside Ocean Terminal, and that felt like an important step forward.  Yesterday I walked along another section of the works and, to my surprise, found rails where none had been when last I passed that way.  And that made me smile, made me just a little bit excited.  It brings a little closer the time when we can walk up the road to get a tram to the airport and fly off somewhere new. Or being able to get to Murrayfield Stadium, and Edinburgh's new home ground, in one hop

Some metal lines on a road gave me joy.  I think I've lowered that bar successfully.