If I hadn’t listened to the Fresh Air podcast episode wherein Terri Gross interviews Kazuo Ishiguro, all the way to the end, I would not have heard of Stacey Kent.

If I had not heard of Stacey Kent, I would not have listened to her album, retiring early to bed, to lie in stillness to escape the day and the fatigue of obligations.

If I had not listened to the album by Stacey Kent and realized that in spite of being a glib introvert stoically surviving pandemic restrictions without much complaint, I did in fact miss our occasional carefree nights out. And then, I would not have felt that line in the documentary titled Audrey, wherein she describes life resuming again after the war: “All the things you’ve never had, never seen, never eaten, never worn, started to come back again. That was such a stimulus.”

(If I had not listened to the whole documentary, I would not have realized how inspiring Audrey Hepburn was… With lines like: “She most certainly took trauma and transmuted it into love.” Or her own observation: “Humanitarian means human welfare. And responding to human suffering. And that’s finally what politics should be. I think perhaps with time, instead of their being a politicalisation of humanitarian aid, there’ll be a humanisation of politics. I dream of the day that it will be all one.”)

If I had not spent the evening doing nothing, I would not have appreciated that Radiolab episode on Escape this morning.

Who knows if I wouldn’t have arrived at these feelings in spite of these bits of media, but here they are, gathered in one neat little posy.