What are the tiny things in life that I love? I’ve made a list

In the middle of March this year, just weeks before they died, the much-loved American poet Andrea Gibson sent out a Substack newsletter. It was devoted not to rage, frustration, pain or grief, but to all the things they loved: a list of loves, like “the drama of an ’80s ballad”, the contagion of laughter, pigeons recognising themselves in photographs, that cows have best friends.

Gibson was a hugely gifted genderqueer writer and spoken-word artist, and they were made poet laureate of Colorado in 2023.

Give me a mirrored disco ball to dance under, and why not a rhythm-challenged dancing partner? Credit:

When they died, on July 14, from ovarian cancer, and thousands grieved, seeking solace in their poems, I kept thinking about this list, and how much it meant to know they were thinking, at that time when air thins, walls draw closer, the body rebels and the trivial fades, of all the tiny things in life that they loved. The ordinary things that make up a life. That becomes the stuffing inside the bear, inside of us.

That these are the things that help us go on, somehow, these ordinary delights.

And I decided, in honour of Andrea, to write my own list, to have something I could pull up to read any time skies grow dim. It was such a fun thing to do. I’d encourage you to do the same – just 10 minutes spent thinking about your life’s loves can be very cheering.

So here goes. To Andrea.

The late Andrea Gibson was “a hugely gifted genderqueer writer and spoken-word artist”. Credit: Steve Mack/Alamy

I love the first sip of hot tea. Also, the second. I love the sounds people make walking into a cold ocean, clutching goggles, squawking and swearing and carrying on. I love the light in people’s eyes when they see something beautiful, a dolphin or newborn, constellation or baby bird.

I love the honesty of children. I love that once I asked my young son what he saw in my eyes and he said “cannonballs and red lightning”. I love the raw fury of toddlers’ balled-up fists and the insouciance of teenagers’ rolling eyes.

I love the ridiculous racket cockatoos make. I love that when you strip the human heart of muscle and fat it looks like a sea fan, intricate and delicate. I love people who lack rhythm but dance like fiends. I love the colours and quiet determination of lichen. I love hyper focus. I love the way children paint. I love the feeling of sun on my back after a swim. I love closing my eyes and stretching my limbs out in the water and floating, salt columns bearing me up.

“I love closing my eyes and stretching my limbs out in the water.”Credit:

I love the ferocity of older women. I love the gasps for air when you can’t stop laughing. I love grandfathers who keep boiled lollies in their pockets, and handkerchiefs stuffed up sleeves. I love the earnestly contorting faces of choir singers.

I love spying on clouds through aeroplane windows.

I love people who stand in streets with placards because they care. I love newspaper letter writers. I love spiral shells that sit on rocks under the sea. I love sunrises and sunsets and I love when crowds gather to applaud them. I love volunteers who wake early and labour long just to make life better for other people. I love nurses. I love orderlies who make nervous patients laugh as they wheel them on trolleys. I love seeing families clustered around hospital beds making inappropriate jokes and eating the food meant for the sick person. I love that even here, there, you hear laughter sometimes.

I love the way my cat bops my dog on his large nose then curls up next to him, licking his fur.

Golden Orb spiders at Bicentennial Park, Homebush Bay.Credit: Anthony Johnson

I love hope. I love the chaos and freedom and disruption of street art. I love people who go on social media and tell strangers they are proud of them. I love knitters of beanies and bears. I love the squinting look on the faces of surfers as they stare at the ocean, assessing.

I love red autumn leaves. I love libraries. I love gelato, especially tart lemon and creamy dulce de leche and also hazelnut chocolate but not all together. I’m not a monster. I love vintage stores crammed with dusty stories, history and promise. I love hot water bottles, still warm at dawn. I love poets who write in the air with their hands when they speak.

I love that spiders can spin webs as strong as steel from tiny frames. I love the dewdrops that hang from them. I love that in the mid-1940s a chicken from Colorado named “Miracle Mike” lived for 18 months without a head, though I do wonder what he made of it all. I love that laughing came before language, chortles before words. I love that trees talk to each other. I love that bees communicate through two kinds of dances: the waggle dance and the circle dance.

I love that garden snails have 14,000 teeth. It seems both excessive and necessary somehow.

I love the way old men blow their noses the way a novice might blow a tuba.

I love the way dogs stare up at us the way we stare at the moon.

I love the snaking roots of Moreton Bay figs. I love that rhubarb squeaks so loudly you can hear it growing in the dark. I love the thick thighs of AFL players. I love the vibrating fingers of cellists. I love the tense, hopeful faces of the families of athletes in the stands. I love the sound of whale song. I love that some butterflies drink turtle tears. I love the weird, flabby ugliness of a blobfish.

I love mirrored disco balls. I love that in some places, birds have the right of way on highways.

I love moonbows. I love that even in dark times, people fall in love, learn music, make art.

I love that dung beetles navigate using the stars.

We’re all dung beetles, really.

Julia Baird is a journalist, author and regular columnist. Her latest book is Bright Shining: how grace changes everything.