Celebrate the Moment

I was chatting to this woman the other night, at a school drinks evening, and I felt that I’d met a kindred spirit. We had quite a lot in common and she too was an aspiring writer. I'd never really spoken to her properly before, beyond exchanging a 'hello' at the school gates but I'd got the impression that she was a lovely, warm person. I mentioned that I’d recently had a *short story published and added on the usual clauses that I feel the need to insert when people asked me about it: that it was being published by a small, independent publisher and that the book probably only had a very small print run, not widely available in shops or online book suppliers or anything. I said that I was torn between wanting to celebrate this fairly **minor achievement (**other people might see it as minor, but to me it’s actually a fairly big deal) and not wanting to make a fuss. I also said that I was tempted to say to people that I wanted to celebrate this because this might be it, this might be as good as it gets.  Then she replied;
“No, (you should) celebrate the moment!”
And I thought - what a lovely idea - celebrate the moment.

I love upbeat and positive people as I sometimes find it hard to cling to the positive myself. I’m a bit of a ‘but what if this happens?’ Chicken-Licken, kinda negative thinker. I find it easier to encourage other people and be positive for them, than for myself, I’m often anticipating disaster or rejection. So I really liked the ‘celebrate the moment’ ethos. It seemed both positive and Zen-like.

Twitter Wisdom
It also tied in with something I’d seen on Twitter, earlier on in the year, when someone said that with writing, success often happened in tiny little increments that were difficult to quantify.  You might be waiting to crack open the champagne until you’d won a competition or when you'd signed with an agent, only to defer it until you’d signed a book deal, then waited until you’d sold over a certain amount of copies, then won an award...The Twitter post urged you to celebrate every step of the way and it was very timely for me because an agent had asked to read my full manuscript.  This was the first time this had happened. I was cautiously optimistic and a wee bit excited. Surely I should wait until she said she wanted to take me on before I cracked open the bubbly? Then I saw the thing on Twitter and duly broke the foil on a bottle of fizz (Prosecco, not champagne). It was a moment to enjoy because it was a sign that someone's interest had been piqued. In the end the agent decided to pass, I was crushed but at the same time I didn't feel too silly for celebrating the small breakthrough, as I’d never even got that far before.

Why should we need an excuse to have a celebration?

• I think in life it’s important to celebrate the little things rather than waiting for something ‘big enough’ to come along. I don’t think we should wait for a ‘big’ birthday or a significant anniversary to come along, before we have a big old knees up, I think we ought to make a fuss about being married for eleven years or about turning nineteen. Or, if parties aren’t a person's bag, do something that we really enjoy.  Sometimes we might think it unseemly or showy to make a fuss but it’s actually really nice to mark things.

I’ve been a little bit passive in the past but if other people don’t give you the fanfare you want - create it yourself.

P.S you can buy the short story anthology here:

https://margocollective.com/product/chains-unheard-voices/?platform=hootsuite&fbclid=IwAR3UmalaoGVwc9iM1M6gPYtocyfB0BZB_CT7BHw-NzfN2N6jnsRl8Le0lxg

Stockholm Syndrome

“Why would any woman vote for Trump?”
A male friend asked me, in 2016, when the gibbering orange baboon was elected to high office.
“Search me, guv!” I said, or something similar.
I can no way claim to speak for all women, unlike a man in my former writing group who used to constantly tell me, when he read about something my male characters had done;
“A man wouldn’t do that!” Because he obviously speaks for all men.
Why would any woman have voted for someone who claimed that you should grab women ‘by the pussy’? Why would any woman cheer as Brett Kavanaugh* was confirmed as supreme court justice? This is obviously a complex psychological and  socio-political issue which I shall attempt to unravel and reduce to an idiot’s guide. (I’m the idiot, reader, not you!).
I really don’t want to dwell on this issue, it pains me to write about it but I feel that I have to.
*https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45660989

In the beginning

It is an established fact, in the world of psychology and beyond, that when you are a child and your parents mistreat you in any way - beat you, call you nasty names, any of the whole gamut of forms of abuse, as a child you perceive the fault to be within yourself, rather than in your parent. It is too painful to entertain the fact that your parents aren’t perfect, so you internalise the guilt instead. It is only when you reach adolescence that you begin to challenge this view. Perhaps some people never do challenge this view? The ones who will tell you that they were thrashed to within an inch of their lives and it never did them any harm? The ones who might joke about their rough treatment by qualifying it with the comment that they were a ‘right little shit’ or perhaps ‘a bit of a handful’. None of us are perfect and I’m certain that I’m giving my kids a whole range of future neuroses - perhaps a germ phobia or an inability to cope well in crowds, to name but a few. It seems hard to believe that little kids think their parents are perfect because mine are always arguing with me and pointing out where they think I’m wrong, but there you are, you can’t argue with the facts…

What’s this got to do with anything?

You know those women who want to know what a woman was wearing when they find out that she was raped, you know those who say that a woman shouldn’t have been walking  alone at night? Why do they buy into such a misogynistic view? Why do they unquestioningly repeat the patriarchal lies? Is it because they are stupid or masochistic or is it because it’s easier to parrot the dominant ethos, rather than question it? Because once you do question it what you are left with is an ugly, unbalanced, unfair society where women are at the bottom of the pile.

Flight of fancy

Imagine a world where a man was walking on his own at night and a group of women attacked and sexually assaulted him and the judge, jury and media stated that it was his fault because he shouldn’t have been walking on his own. Moreover he was dressed very provocatively, in tight jeans and muscle T. His genitals could clearly be seen through the lines of his denim - meaning that he was asking to be assaulted.

Why did the women weep in support of Kavanaugh?

I don’t believe this to be purely a question of political allegiances, some right wing women
spoke out against Kavanaugh:

From the Guardian article:

'I'm on the brink of tears': how rightwing women reacted to Kavanaugh
28 September 2018

Some, of course, supported him every step of the way.

Kavanaugh's accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, still can't return home because of the death threats she's received, since coming forward with her accusations. Why would any woman voluntarily put herself up for that kind of abuse? Ford is a highly respected, intelligent woman, she must have anticipated some of the fallout from her claims, she talked of placing herself 'on the train tracks', of annihilation. One can only conclude that she was telling the truth, she knew what this man was capable of and was prepared to put herself through an excoriating public ordeal in order to highlight his shortcomings and prevent him holding a position of such great power.

And today the orange baboon apologised to Kavanaugh for what he has gone though...

Wake up women, wake up to the uncomfortable truth - the parent society is deeply, fundamentally flawed.