And what Alanis taught us
To write my nana’s eulogy we all met at her bungalow. It’s the only place we’ve known her to live, and the smell of potpourri as soon as you walk in the door, stepping onto the deepest carpet I’ve ever known, and the way that the photo frames and ornaments rattle as you walk the length of it, is so familiar it’s hard to even identify. But it’s that thing you get with places you’ve known your whole life. When you know the inside of it as much you can know anything.
It’s the same feeling as eating food that you remember from childhood, that it has been imprinted for so long it’s the only thing to bring you back to yourself when you’re sick or sad. I haven’t eaten the lightly curried cabbage that nana used to make for years now, and yet I will be able to taste it somewhere in the back of my mouth forever. How is that? And probably no one will ever be able to recreate the taste of the dhal that she used to make, partially in the microwave, very mildly spiced - I always over-do.
Gemma and Kate were going through drawers and cupboards whilst we were trying to put the sentences together. Curious to be in this house we have known our whole lives but suddenly free to snoop. Unattended. They found some home videos on VHS that we could play on the telly in the kitchen. And it was us, 23 years ago, with squeaky little Essex accents and clothes that are so familiar and so far away. We haven’t seen those videos for years, and historically whenever we rewatch them, I get into some kind of deep mood about how insufferable I am as a 9 year old. But this time was the first time I could tolerate it.
For some reason I could tolerate my inherently annoying nature. The desperate attention seeking and need to be centre stage. It was more like, oh ok, I’ve always been a bit like this and it’s probably who I am as a person, but now I speak more poshly. Fine. Was somewhat born this way. Fine fine fine. When we were actually writing the eulogy I sat at the laptop and rearranged sentences and asked for sign off and moved us along to the next paragraph. It was a nice process, and even though I can contribute nothing, and I really mean nothing, to a crossword. I could do this.
For a writer I really don’t read as much as I should. And I definitely haven’t read the brow of books I should. I’ve had to abandon so many books early on because I simply cannot understand what the words are saying. And it’s not just because I find it easy and uncomplicated to give up on things. It’s because I actually can’t absorb the words if there’s no emotional hook for me. It’s why I was always out of my depth at university and got through because I’m bright - not because I understand the words I was reading. I could highlight the right sentences and write these inflated essays that carried enough energy to carry my grade.
Anyway, it’s partly for that reason that in my first job I was waiting to be discovered. Because I could get by and found my own way of doing things, but I knew I didn’t have the mechanical understanding that other people had. Every time I’ve had the chance to peep into academia and a more critical way of doing things, I’ve felt like holy shit i’m in the middle of a very deep ocean here and I cannot explain how I got here and how I understand the things I do. It’s also connected to the way I misuse words and phrases from time to time. Dad or Beth might say, I knew what you meant because I know you but that’s not what that word means. And I’ll bounce back, but that’s what the energy of the word means to me. And they will roll their eyes and that will be that.
Anyway, writing and reading have such different places in my life and one almost never folds into the other. I read when I am calm and want to relax, but I can’t relax by reading if I am not calm to start with because I won’t be able to understand any of the words. Often being fraught or in pain or turmoil is the best fuel for me to write. That is when I am most compelled and it carries itself and is the only place to calm me down. So in a way it’s kind of opposites.
Because it is hard to be a writer in the sense that it’s hard to make a living from, it is a very gate kept. The gatekeepers are mostly people who got through to the otherside or people who can help you get through to the otherside. And by otherside I simply mean to be published somewhere that counts. And by counts I mean counts to people who ask at soirees you find yourself attending, where they can find your writing, or worse still, what you write about. At one of these events last year I found myself unnecessarily defensive because I felt already on the back foot and I knew as soon as I said, oh I write about my life, I’d have lost the audience. And I said it and I did. He wandered off to a different group and I thought is that because I was passive aggressive or because he was uninterested in the information that I write about my life?
Anyway I have been thinking about this because of how many people I know have these manuscripts for books they’ve written locked away in metaphorical drawers because it didn’t ‘go anywhere’. And then a few people I know who wrote books that did go somewhere but were left blinking slowly wide eyed because of what it felt like when it worked out. And Lena Dunham herself has reminded me how good it feels to be working towards something and how hard it feels to get it. Which most wise people agree is true of anything in life. Especially that which we are fixated on.
I think about it too with motherhood or longing for a baby. How big that shape can become and how different the reality is. I always think when I finally have a baby I promise I will never say I can’t believe how hard it is, because in fact everyone has warned me. And I’d like to think I wouldn’t forget that I was already a complete person before. But perhaps the lesson for now is the same, that the goal of the book or the baby cannot be a fixation because then it becomes so much bigger than it can ever be. And it will always be something else. The way expectations are in their nature. And with all of it, everything, altogether now: we have no control.
Anyway, as soon as I took getting an agent or a book deal off the table I could enjoy writing more than I ever have. And it had more purpose too. I was the most stuck I was ever been with words in the months I was waiting to hear back on the agent I’d set my hopes and dreams on. And then like Alanis sings: The moment I let go of it was the moment I got more than I could handle, The moment I jumped off of it, Was the moment I touched down.