I’m a chronic lister.
No, I don’t mean I lean to a side like a ship listing to starboard; though occasionally I have been known to do that. And it’s not why you think. It’s the high winds howling off Hackleton’s Cliff in St John.
No, I mean I make lists. I can’t live without making lists. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is go out on the veranda with my cup of tea and make my list for the day. And every Friday I make my list for the following week.
My wife thinks it’s an obsession, and an unhealthy one at that. She wants to know why I have to make lists in the first place? Why do I have to put down on a piece of paper everything I have to do? Why not just do them? Why must life be listed?
You have to excuse her, she is a Trinidadian. Trinis love disorder. They thrive on chaos. You know, “now for now” kind of people; the carnival mentality. I can understand that. I used to be like that – when I was two years old and not yet potty-trained.
We used to go together to Carnival in Trinidad every year. She still goes. I stopped going 20 years ago when she tore up the list I had made of things to do in Trinidad.
Tell me, how was I going to survive from J’ouvert morning till Ash Wednesday without a list?
This listing business grows with age. Now I make lists of lists. This drives my wife crazy. Let me share with you the secret of marriage: it’s all about finding the perfect person to drive mad for the rest of your life. Mind you, she gives as good as she gets in the driving mad department.
I make lists of lists mainly because I keep losing my lists. You see I have to hide them from my wife or else she destroys them. I used to leave them lying around on tables or countertops from which I could conveniently retrieve them. But in my wife’s view tables and countertops are not made for having little pieces of paper on them.
So I would stick a list under the computer printer and only discover it a week later. By then I couldn’t read it. Not that the ink had faded or run, but my handwriting has a short recognition shelf life. If I don’t read what I’ve written in the next 15 minutes I can’t decipher it.
You’ll say why not type them on the computer? The problem is that the times and places I want to make lists are not computer-friendly: sitting on the veranda admiring nature, and sitting on the toilet obeying nature.
Isn’t life wonderfully ironic? I sit on the veranda, gazing at the sparkling sea in the distance; pondering the mysteriously dark grove of mahogany trees that is Pool Woods; amazed by the early morning mist that is nestling in the hollow in the cane field below our house, and what does all that romantic activity inspire me to do? Have a bowel movement.
So what do I make lists of? Well, things to do. Not that I ever intend to do most of them.
I learned a neat trick the other day. One morning I walked around the yard doing a few mundane chores – picking up and cleaning the dog bowls, watering the plants, weeding and so on. Then I went back inside, made a list of what I had done and crossed out all the items. I felt an overpowering sense of accomplishment.
Today’s list has one item.
My hope is that the police bear in mind that the murderers of the six young women are dangerous armed psychopaths. They will not surrender peacefully.
• Peter Laurie is a retired diplomat and a commentator on social issues. Email [email protected].
