Making People Cry
I'm resending this newsletter as most people didn't get it on Friday.
By a wonderfully unexpected turn of events, I am in France. I am staying in my friend’s apartment and I can’t believe my luck.
I’m working from here, drinking coffee and drinking wine. The same as in London but the wine is cheaper and outside my door is cobbled streets and beyond that the sea. I’m so grateful, I keep texting my friend to thank her. This morning she asked me to stop it with the texts. Ha.
People at home do not seem to be doing so well. Yesterday I did four interviews for an article and two of my interviewees cried.* And not because I was mean to them.
Meanwhile friends are complaining about insomnia, bad backs and endless colds. It feels like people are cracking up a bit.
In last week’s Writing for Fun and Sanity, we wrote down three words to describe how we were feeling. ‘Tired. Exhausted. Burned out.’ summed up most people’s feelings.
So I suggested we write about how we feel about rest. Some people had a visceral reaction to the word. They were angry at the very idea of it. There wasn’t time to rest! Who had time for that? Rest was a sign of laziness or weakness! A moral weakness.
It is crazy symptom of a productivity obsessed culture that this is how we think; that this totally essential thing is an indulgence. It is not. Even at the best of times it is not - and this is not the best of times.
What we have all been through the last two years is massive. Even if you still have a roof over your heads and a job that is paying the bills and lots to be grateful, it is massive.
Think of everything we have been through.
The panic of the beginning lockdowns, the shock of seeing empty supermarket shelves, the terror of not knowing what we were getting into, the pain of not being able to hug loved ones, of not being able to see them when they were in hospital. The horror of not being able to go to family member’s funerals. The surreal nightmare that was (and still is) the news. The despair of not having faith in the people in charge. The loneliness of living alone. The exhaustion of living with others. The impossibility of home schooling two kids, one with special needs, while doing your own full time job at the kitchen table while your husband is in the bedroom. The impossibility of trying to do work calls while living in a house-share with five others in a three bedroom house, so you resort to doing calls in the bath. The uncertainty around absolutely everything. The topsy turvy feeling of seeing people you know and love post things online about vaccines and conspiracies that you don’t agree with. The topsy turvy feeling of wondering maybe they are right. Who knows what is real anymore? Who knows?
This is exhausting. Even if you have the roof, and the loved ones, and blessings to count it is EXHAUSTING. Physically, emotionally, mentally.
I said all this to a friend yesterday. She is at breaking point and beating herself up because she is not Getting Anything Done.
You need to rest, I said. Stop. Do nothing. Or as little as possible. Call in sick. Take a nap. Watch telly. Anything it takes, just rest. Everything will sort itself out once you are rested.
She told me it isn’t easy to do nothing when you have job and kids. Of course it isn’t. I don’t know what it’s like to have people wanting and needing things from you from the minute you wake up to the minute you fall asleep. I get exhausted just thinking about it.
So I told her maybe she could take a break from telling herself she should be doing more than she is already doing. Maybe that could be the break. To accept that she is knackered right now and she has already done so well getting her family through the last couple of years and having any kind of a career in tact.
Maybe the break is to remind herself that she has done great. Nothing more is needed right now but to go as easy on herself as is possible.
I read a post from Glennon Doyle who wrote a note to Adele who had to cancel an event and felt terrible.
Glennon reminded Adele that these are intense times. Of course things are not just carrying on business as usual. We are unrealistic to put those kinds of pressures on ourselves and others.
‘You should write a newsletter about this,’ she said.
What I’m reading
This article about the seven different types of rest we need was really interesting. It explains that rest isn’t just sleep. It is restful to be in the company of people we are ourselves with, it is restful to get out paintbrushes and do something creative or dance the night away… sometimes we don’t need to do nothing, we need to do something we enjoy, with someone we love. We need to fill ourselves up. As someone who finds it too easy to do nothing and take to my bed (in the middle of the day) this is the kind of rest I need. More inspiration. More JOY!
Speaking of which, this photo gives me joy. It’s of 90 year old Molly Parkin who paints every day. Google her, she has had a life… I LOVE HER.
Speaking of having a life, I am reading the Betty Dodson memoir. What a woman! Betty died this year at the age of 91 and was famous for holding masturbation workshops in her NYC apartment. I know a woman who went to one and said it changed her life. Here is her obit in the NYT.
And on a completely different note, I was pleased to read this: Our £5 million company went bust over night. I know the couple who started this company. I saw them build up the business from nothing - literally in their front room. They were beginning to fly high when lockdown hit and then it all collapsed. I’m happy they pulled themselves back from the brink. I haven’t been on them but their holidays' look great. They are grown up (and luxe) back packing in groups. So half adventure, half nice hotel. Great to do if you are single and have money to spend but don’t have anyone to go on holiday with. Check out THE FLASH PACK.
What I’m watching
I finished And Just Like That, the Sex and the City spin off. I know it was glitchy and weird with all the woke references and new characters but seeing Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte felt like seeing old friends. I already miss them.
I started watching the Gucci movie but got distracted by Facebook. ** Which was either a sign the movie was slow or is just another sign of my fecked concentration. Speaking of which - Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus is on my reading list.
What I’m buying
Cheese and wine and cheese and wine and cheese and wine!! And 90 cent baguettes, warm from the bakery directly opposite the apartment.
What I’m listening to
This was a lovely conversation between poet David Whyte and writer Sarah Wilson. It’s about resting and walking… but in a way that’s much more interesting than that...
This music video (do the kids even call it that anymore?) is lovely.
Workshops!
We are back with Writing for Fun and Sanity on February 12th and 19th. As ever pay what you can - don’t let money be the reason you don’t come. There is a full ticket price and beneath it there is the Pay What you Can option.
Here are the links.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/263121512527 & https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/263131221567
Bisous and pain aux raisins….xx
**I finished the Gucci movie and liked it. I loved the hapless, useless character of Paolo Gucci (kept crying, flat was a mess - reminded me of me) and couldn’t recognise the actor. I googled. It’s Jared Leto! Jared Leto of teenage crushes, Jared Leto. He was unrecognisable and very funny. Adam Driver is good, Lady Gaga too. Rubbish Italian accent by Jeremy Irons but I guess it’s OK because he is Jeremy Irons.