In honour of International Women’s Day
A Woman’s Place
Books: a Love Letter
Dear Books,
What can I say? You’ve been by my side for as long as I can remember: from childhood fairytales to midlife learning; from university libraries to cosy Tuesday afternoons with a cup of tea and a cat on my lap. The world opened up thanks to you.
When life hurt you offered shelter under Ladybird wings, gifted Shakespeare to my confused teenage mind. I got out of hospital and you knew I needed cartoon comfort, leaving Calvin and Hobbes on my bed. Health fears and lockdowns had you rummaging around for something new to surprise me with – the poems of John O’Donohue.
When life was light you offered Thomas Hardy to share my university journey, dropping copies of anything by Neil Gaiman when I was ready to escape into other worlds. When laughter was required you reached out a hand to tickle my sides with Bill Bryson. Lately you seem to know that my mind needs to be expanded and I found a 500-page tome by Yuval Noah Harari on my desk.
Most of all, you’ve pushed The Great Gatsby into my hands at regular intervals to bring me home. Words heal, you taught me that. And I’ll always be grateful.
Happy World Book Day.
Love,
Susan
“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.” Annie Dillard
Too Eager for the Future
"Always too eager for the future, we pick up bad habits of expectancy. Something is always approaching; every day Till then, we say," Philip Larkin, Next Please
Sometimes I feel as if I’m always in a hurry, rushing from one task to the next with barely a breath between. What’s the rush? It’s as if I think something more important, or something better, is just around the corner – once the dishes are done, that is.
Like most children of the seventies I had a beloved collection of Ladybird books (they’re still on my shelves today, still beloved) and Aesop’s fables were a particular favourite. For here be villagers crying wolf, foxes without tails, geese atop golden eggs. And a tortoise who won the race. Needless to say most of Aesop’s clever morals passed me by for some time, I even identified more closely with the hare (I was a sprinter, so obviously it is the fastest who wins) and simply resolved never to fall asleep during a race and thus allow a slower contestant to overtake.
But soon enough I worked it out: kindness often gets things done more quickly than force; it is wiser to be content with what you have. And the race is not always to the swift.
Slow and steady is the key. Like the pre-schoolers of Mischel’s Marshmallow Test in the early seventies at Stanford, we try to learn patience, delaying gratification so that appreciation follows. Rather than rushing through life trying to get to something else I can treasure small moments, listen to birdsong, maybe even enjoy washing the dishes. In short, I can be here. Now.
R.S. Thomas was right – life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is life and it is now. Likewise with lockdown easing, vaccine rollout, getting back to ‘normal’ – slow and steady wins the race. We’ll get there.
And waiting at the finish line will be a happy tortoise who reaches out his wrinkly hand to congratulate us on our slow journey and shared wisdom.
Words Heal
What is it about poetry? I’ve found myself holding onto it for dear life lately, picking up volume after volume in order to escape the fearful – and unordinary – days all around us.
Alongside a daily visit to The Emergency Poet, edited by Deborah Alma, I’m spending most mornings with Brian Bilston who has become Twitter’s unofficial poet laureate. Amanda Gorman’s spellbinding recital of ‘The Hill We Climb’ at Biden’s inauguration continues to speak of both admonishment and hope, while Margaret Atwood has a new volume out (‘Dearly: Poems’ – on my wish list). Breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper – words are food.
And so to the Twittersphere’s laureate, Brian Bilston and his Serenity Prayer. Read or listen and if a smile doesn’t creep across your face I’ll eat my hat.
The Power of Touch
I’m not a hugger. Generally I exist in a fairly wide expanse of ‘personal space’ and feel quite content. But this last year of years has brought some surprises – turns out, I miss hugs. Who’d have thought?
Of the five senses, touch is perhaps one of the most forgotten. As soon as we’re born we know that it’s required for our survival (newborns flourish with skin-to-skin contact) and it’s one of the last senses to leave during our last moments. Put simply, touch keeps us alive.
Neuroscience agrees: social touch releases oxytocin and lowers heart rate, reminding our bodies that we are here, reminding our minds that we are not alone.
When I got back from a year of travelling I was catching up with people in a noisy bar (remember that?) and hugged a close friend, one of those hugs that lasts longer than normal and transforms into an embrace. And among the noise and laughter we realised we had started to cry. Something happened in that moment that brought emotion to the surface, and allowed it to break – no words were needed. Cara had gone through a tough time and I had missed her. Simple really.
We make things complicated when they’re not. Reaching out is how we’re made – the unforced trust that children place in those around them when they run towards us with open arms. It’s devastating that the pandemic is taking something so important away: instead of reaching out, we recoil; instead of brushing an eyelash off someone’s cheek, we leave it there.
Lockdown for those who live alone is hard to bear and it’s no surprise that pets have been keeping us going on these dark days and nights. Dogs and cats all over the country have been cuddled like never before.
I wish I could end by saying it’ll all be okay soon, that we’ll be back to close contact and crowded rooms any day now. Maybe the best thing for now is that we are learning lessons, and as ever they are hard-won.