Bruce is a parrot who lost part of his beak, figured out how to use a pebble to replace it and somehow managed to ascend to alpha-male status in his group. No longer able to fight by biting, he learned to joust. This is not a life lesson, unless you want it to be. At the very least, I think it’s worth meditating a moment on a broken-beaked parrot named Bruce who jousts. Now, on to our list.
On this week’s list:
1. Welcome in
2. Write your name on Earth
3. Showering at the airport
4. The joy bar
5. Blossoms in the seams
6. Deadline music
1.
Welcome in
At first I thought the uptick in shopkeepers and restaurant hosts greeting guests with “welcome in” was annoying, affected. Then, after the 117th time I heard it, I asked my server why she said “welcome in” instead of just “welcome.” She said she’d noticed everyone else at the restaurant doing it, so she tried and found she liked it.
I’ve now decided there’s something warmer about “welcome in.” A cozy intimacy. It makes it sound like there’s something going on in this store or at this restaurant, and you’re being invited to participate in it.
When I’ve run this by other people, some have said they can’t stand being welcomed in. Where do you stand? Let us know in the comments.
2.
Write your name on Earth
What will you do with an image of your name made from satellite images of the Earth’s geography? Share it on Instagram with some relevant emojis 🌍 😍? Print it out and put it on the fridge? Gaze at it with awe for a few minutes and then move on with your day?
Mine gives me outsize pleasure: the M a series of bends in Shenandoah National Park, the A complexly shaped Norwegian lake, all manner of blues and greens.
Kids like seeing their names on things like name tags, cubbies, birthday cakes. It’s part of forming an identity: It’s me! I exist, out there in the world. I don’t think we ever totally lose this thrill. I still check for my name on the rack of novelty license plates in a souvenir shop. And now I love seeing my name in geological forms on a NASA website. It’s me! I exist!
3.
Showering at the airport
Air travel, for those of us without “status,” can feel like a long series of slights, a gantlet of humiliating rejections: No, you can’t stand in that line, no you can’t enter that lounge, you can’t board yet, you can’t sit there, you can’t have that complimentary glass of Champagne or use that bathroom behind the curtain or stretch your legs. You can be walking around your life, feeling pretty good about your standing in the hierarchy, and then you enter an airport and discover you are not welcome.
So it is heartening to learn that “You Don’t Have to Be Filthy Rich to Enjoy an Airport Shower.” For as little as $22, you can rinse off in a fancy bathroom at Changi Airport in Singapore (of course, you might have to spend a bit more to get yourself to Singapore). There are free showers in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Frankfurt, the lounge with the showers also has “an array of snacks that include fruit, pastries, deli meats, cheeses, pickles and German pork sausages,” according to my colleague Julie Weed. Don’t forget the espresso machine! Many of these affordable shower rooms offer naps as add-on features, which is so civilized compared with the indignities of armrest and overhead-bin territorial disputes.
I plan to shower at the airport as soon as possible. No matter how short the flight, I always feel like stale bread when I land. Till now, my own not-so-secret secret to feeling less gross after a flight was simple: brush your teeth. Brush your teeth as soon as you finish your tomato juice and pretzels, before you fall asleep. You’ll wake up with a much fresher mouth.
4.
The joy bar
I came across this line scrawled in a notebook recently: “Your bar for joy should be very low.” Where did I hear this? Why don’t I always heed it? Why, I might ask myself — you might ask yourself — is our bar for joy so high? Why aren’t we more easily delighted? Lower the bar! Is there any reason not to?
I’ve seen dozens of photos of bright pink petals on the ground in my online wanderings lately, the final throes of cherry blossom season. One photo I saw of flowers blown into the cracks in a sidewalk was captioned “blossoms in the seams,” and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
Those breaks in the sidewalk are the seams of the built world, like the seams of a couch. Not a gutter or a gap, but a seam, where two parts are stitched together to make a thing stronger, to make it whole. A seam feels softer than a break. When you look at the place where the road meets the curb and think “seam,” infrastructure suddenly becomes a little more human.
The Australian composer Dean Stevenson sits down each morning to write a new piece from scratch. At 4 p.m., a string quartet arrives to play whatever he has written. And, if you happen to be in Berriedale, Tasmania, you can stop by the Museum of Old and New Art to watch them rehearse and perform that new piece in person. If not, you can catch the livestream on YouTube.
It’s fascinating to watch art come together in real time, to witness the composer and musicians wrestling with it and sit alongside them as they arrive at the final product. And to know that they’ll start all over again tomorrow. How exhilarating to be reminded that creativity is not finite, that each morning we can decide what we want to make of the time available. It’s like what Anne of Green Gables said: “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
“4PM” continues at Mona each day at 4 p.m., until May 11.
Thanks to Sandi Thorman, a reader from Charlotte, N.C., for the recommendation.
One more thing: This week, a dispatch from Inga Newcomb, a reader in Exeter, N.H.:
From January through April 2024, I journaled daily while going through chemo and radiation for breast cancer and getting dumped by my boyfriend. That journal started out with me trying to be and stay positive, but turned into a dark, ugly, broken account of how I felt. I had to just stop.
On July 1, 2024, I started a new journal. Every night when I got into bed I looked back over my day and recorded anything that made me smile, that warmed my heart, that I was grateful for, or that reminded me how lucky I felt. Big things, like still having my life and the love and support of family and friends; but also small stuff: finding joy in birdsong or pizza.
Now, after 1.5 years, this practice has changed my outlook. Last week, instead of griping about an unexpected car repair, I actually felt grateful that I have a car for my job that allows me to pay for repairs, that I supported a local business. And now, my vehicle can stop safely, protecting me — and, more important, people I don’t even know.
The world needs more love. Grateful to be able to give that out.
The world does indeed need more love. How are you giving it out? Tell me in the comments. You can also always email me. And you can check out past editions of The Good List anytime. If you want to get The Good List in your inbox, sign up here. I’ll see you next week. — Melissa
The Good List is edited by Jodi Rudoren. Eli Cohen handles the photos.
