ACCEPTING YOU'LL NEVER REACH THE STARS
It’s been a busy old couple of weeks what with Kanye West. But antisemites aren’t going anywhere so let’s have a break and talk about something else today.
I want to tell you two quick memories from school…
I remember years ago a group of us from infants school had to practise for a big concert that was going take place in a theatre in London with lots of other schools taking part.
We were all going to play a song from The Wind In The Willows.
And we practised for weeks.
Every Thursday - going into the music room to practise.
Anyway - the big day came and we got a coach down there.
And we sat down in our seats in this giant auditorium.
There were kids from schools all around the country filling up the rows.
All over the country.
North London.
South London.
Kids from all over the country.
And they were all in different uniforms.
Kids in posh uniforms with hats.
Kids in tidy smart blazers.
And then the concert started.
Finally - The Wind In The Willows moment came and all the different schools played their instruments in the sections they had been rehearsing for weeks.
There were children playing violins, harps, flutes, cellos.
And then we came.
My school.
Banging coconuts together.
A year of training, to bang some coconuts together.
“The wind in the willows, is calling to me, come play in the spring time, how happy we’ll be.”
MY SCHOOL: *pause* … *clunk some coconuts together* … *sit back down*
And then we got in a coach and went back home.
The second memory is during the first year of junior school….
I remember a special assembly where some actor types came into our school and put on a production of Stig of The Dump. Stig of The Dump is about a boy who discovers a caveman living in a chalk pit where people dump rubbish.
We all had to sit round the outside of the hall whilst for half an hour a man in his thirties ran around in his underpants pretending to be a monkey. We didn't know what the fuck he was doing. When he was finished the teacher told us to clap. Then we went back to our classrooms.
So these are today’s memories. If either of these events had been decent I probably wouldn’t have remembered them. But there’s some kind of memorable magic in life’s rubbish moments. There are dreams in detritus.
I hope you find enduring spiritual nourishment in life’s small, boring, frustrating moments when you’re not reaching the stars.