joy

on getting a literary and metaphorical shot in the arm and unearthing big feelings

To my dear Musers

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I received the most joyous news on Sunday, however, when I first began reading the email I assumed that it was another ‘thanks but no thanks’ reply. It began with all the wonderful things about the entries, the judges, the calibre of the work – and at this point I nearly moved the email straight to my Rejections folder – and then they got to the great part. My manuscript that I have laboured over for about eight years was longlisted for their unpublished manuscript prize. I had to close and open the email and re-read it a number of times to believe it. What incredible joy I feel about this little old story getting a look in.

It’s a long way off from a publisher taking it on, but it is a win and is a metaphorical literary shot in the arm.

On the weekend, I decided to move things around in my office and remove the bookshelf that contained the antique books and family’s books so that I could have more room to work. In doing so, I needed to pull everything out of the bookshelf that was moving and this included my notebooks and diaries going a long way back. The notebook that floored me was the one I used when I was in India as a 20-year-old. Tucked in the back were all the letters that I received while I was there and my parents’ handwriting.

Reading through them, I could hear their voices and I was baffled to realise that they were both younger than I am now when they wrote to me. This slipperiness of time and ageing always knocks me. Then, I was younger than my kids are now when I was over there, yet I felt old, mature. My parents, in my mind then, were old and out of touch.

I cringe reading some of their words, like Mum asking about the lighter that was in my grey jacket, noting that she had to dryclean my doona as it stunk of cigarette smoke (my dad had worked for years on the no smoking in the workplace campaign). I had been out of home for a year by the time I left for India and I returned home on the day I was leaving the country with a car stuffed full of my things and dumped them into my old bedroom. Then, I thought, that room would always be mine even though I had wanted to be out of home for more years than I had been.

I had always felt stifled by home and my parents’ strong Christian values and rules. Mum never shied from speaking her mind and that caused great friction between us for many years.

My India notebook stuffed full with letters and aerogrammes

I’m shocked to read words now that I don’t know if I even read them properly then. Words about Mum struggling with losing her job after having to reapply for it, her going back to uni, Dad sharing his struggles with his work (we both worked for Telecom then and he and I often talked work). Mum mentions a Leanne who was living with them. I had completely forgotten about Leanne and the time that she lived with us. My childhood was full of extras living in our family. No sooner would someone exit stage left than another would enter stage right. As the youngest in the family this was something I always struggled with as there were so many others competing for my parents attention.

Video of my office space now

This notebook unearthed all those feelings. Maybe it also knocked me so hard because I was reading The Years by Annie Ernaux who was born the same year as Mum and it was making me see Mum in a different light.

The manuscript that was longlisted is ultimately about this question of whether we, the daughters, can ever understand our mothers as younger women and understand the decisions they made. I don’t think we can, but I am (potentially fruitlessly) trying to bridge that gap with my kids so that they can hopefully see M and I as younger people in all the glory and mess of who we were.

I do hold onto one useless piece of wisdom that my dad tried to give me when I called early in the morning from a boyfriend’s house with a lie about where I had been and why I hadn’t come home or called the night before (remember: staunch Christians):

Meg, why can’t you just learn from my mistakes?

ah…because I can’t, I need to make my own mistakes and…what the hell were your mistakes?

I have not pulled that one on my kids. Instead, I have fessed up about my own mistakes, been honest with them and hope that this means that they are free to be honest with me; however, in the words of my youngest when he was about 10, ‘You don’t really know what you’re doing, do you? It’s like you’ve got parenting L-Plates on.’

Yup.

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Other things

My baby turned 21 and is on the other side of the world, so all I could do was make a video for him and post it on the socials.

Writing

I’m still working on the next draft of my rom-com. I have set a goal to work through one scene a day so that I can hit my goal of completing this draft by the end of August. I have four days away writing with my wonderful writing group in a couple of weeks and I expect I’ll get through quite a bit of it there (as well as spending a fair whack of time catching up).

Writers, are my writing opps and comps newsletters helpful? Drop me a comment to let me know

Reading

I’ve finished reading:

• The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean by Mira Robertson – a really enjoyable historical coming of age fiction set in 1940s country Victoria.

• Maggie’s Going Nowhere by Rose Hartley – funny and snappy. Set in Melbourne and is a great fun listen (or read)

• Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon – I started this ages ago and must have got distracted and not finished it. It is full of wisdom for all creatives. One of those books that shouldn’t be put away, but should be dog-earred.

• The Years by Annie Ernaux – Highly recommend this 2022 Nobel Prize winning book that was translated by Alison L Strayer. Sublime. My mother was born the same year as Annie (1940) and while they were born in different countries, it felt like I was looking through my mother’s photos of her life and finding meaning in her and the times. It’s written in this amazing individual/collective voice, going from ‘she’ to ‘we’ in a breath as though she’s able to find wisdoms and meaning for her whole generation. Reading it made me feel closer to and more distanced from Mum, and a feeling of breathlessness at how fast time passes and how my children will never understand what it is to have grown up in the years I have and at the good and bad of the decades and changes, at loss of wisdom and…
  I stalled in finishing this as finishing it would bring me too close to knowing that life/book ends are inevitable and that in the after, all we have are our individual/collective memories. (also posted about this on Instagram)

Current reads are:

• Abandon Every Hope by Hayley Singer

• Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright – the size is daunting

What are you reading?

Watching

Winter is well and truly here and it’s watching season, especially as it’s just been M and I at home most nights.

• Finished the latest season of Colin from Accounts – great joyful Aussie humour

• The Brother Sun (Netflix) – classified as comedy-drama but I was doubting it in the first episode (grim, brutal), but it gets better. A satisfying end to the season.

• Captain Fantastic – beautiful feel good movie (also touted as comedy, but definitely didn’t feel like comedy)

• An Unfinished Life – enjoyable drama about a woman fleeing domestic violence to stay with her estranged and prickly father-in-law

• A Family Affair – okay

• Hit Man – a great offbeat/absurdist funny movie

We’ve just started watching The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It’s hard to watch, in the right way.

Five things

1. When I’m feeling overwhelmed with all the things I need to do, I take a moment to think about what the first three things are that I need to do. Once I have done that, starting is easy. What are the first three things you need to do to achieve your results?

2. Soup! It’s soup weather and I’m making the same ones over and over (pumpkin, pea and ham, vegetable, minestrone) and need some inspiration. What are you making?

3. Jill Hess’s post about Sylvia Plath’s notebooks

4. Streaming services. How many is too many? We stream Netflix, Stan and Binge, and I think it’s too many – also considering we have SBS and ABC. We are in the thinking spot about this and considering which we will stop. How do you do it?

5. Slow fashion. I’m also thinking about something I read yesterday about how Australians are the highest consumers of clothing, buying on average 57 pieces of clothing a year. I know I’m not in the top range of this but it has made me think about whether I need to buy, well, anything.

Thank you dear Musers for reading and stay warm.

Til next time

x M