Being Found

I'm only presenting my point of view

Nothing in here details what I did to you

The times I spoke harshly

Or was guilty of inconsistency

I’m aware of that

I’m not totally lacking in self awareness

I was trying to read Playing and Reality by Donald Winnicott [ paediatrician and psychoanalyst ], when the rejection letter came through.

Just as it is perfectly possible for lightning to strike the same place more than once, it is also possible for the same literary agent to reject you twice, for different books (after she’d requested to read the full manuscript for both). 

I keep bumping into Winnicott.  I’ve just read a book by Philippa Perry, entitled The Book you Wish your Parents had Read: and your children will be glad you did. A somewhat grandiose claim which is partly justified, I feel. Anyway, she highlighted one of Winnicott’s quotes, he had said, while observing children playing 'Hide and Seek': 

"It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found"

Perry’s book is all about the importance of seeing or ‘finding’ the child - of listening to them, acknowledging their feelings and being aware of the baggage that you, the parent, bring to every interaction you have with them. Basically, the book expounds, much of how you respond to your children is about how your parents responded to you as a child. So, if you had an emotionally distant parent, you might find yourself resenting the demands your own kids make on you. 

For a long time I’ve been somewhat obsessed with attachment theory https://www.psychologistworld.com/developmental/attachment-theory, to the point where I immediately try and work out whether the adults I come across had a good or insecure attachment with their mothers. (I'm also somewhat preoccupied with how strong an attachment I've formed with my own children, particularly given the fact that I experienced some postnatal depression with the first child.)

Did Perry’s book help me, as a mother? To a point it did - I now try to stop and think about my responses to my children. I do try to respond rather than react (although I can’t remember whether that bit of advice came from her book or from the ‘Dealing with Stress’ workshop I attended at work!) and I do question my responses (even more than before - it’s such fun being in my head!)
I never understood the glib, confident attitude of some of the other mothers I came across when my kids were babies. The - ‘you should be doing this’ brigade. How could they be so sure and certain that theirs was the best way? Why weren’t they questioning everything? Of course, you can’t just stop for a hour’s internal wrangle when there’s liquid poo running down your infant’s leg, but in rare times of tranquillity, why were they not wracked with indecision? Were they those enviable creatures to whom it was all simply ‘instinctive’? ‘Instinct will kick in, you’ll know know what to do.’ They used to say. Erm….

Anyway, I seem to have veered away from the point somewhat, if I ever had one. Winnicott - he comes up again in the rather brilliant graphic novel, Are You my Mother?, by Alison Bechdel.

Alison, she of the ‘Bechdel Test’ https://bechdeltest.com/ Bechdel! She seems to be writing about an insecure attachment with her mother which spills over into every area of her adult life - relationships, commitment, artistic endeavours. Winnicott comes to life in her drawings - he’s there, on his hands and knees, playing with a baby and expounding his ideas. Bechdel weaves Winnicott's theories into how they play into her own life and it’s fascinating.

So, back to the rejection letter, are my aspirations as a writer all to do with being found?? Possibly. But did I feel like I had a cracking story to tell? Yes, yes and thrice yes! Stories are how we make sense of the world and I felt/feel that I had one that was just as entertaining as Bran Stark’s!
I got back on the horse that day and entered a couple of competitions.
When I was a child, I dealt with being ignored by retreating further into my shell and creating a vivid, fantasy world. Now, as an adult, I’m jumping up and down, waving a flag and shouting ‘hello, HELLO, I’m still here! Come and look at my fantasy world!'

You might think that makes me a flagrant narcissist, but then, maybe you didn’t have a secure attachment, as a baby, either.

Social Life - The continuing adventures of Space Dorg

Yes, I realise that (the appeal for) this medium is probably very niche, particularly now the novelty has worn off, but I can't stop drawing it.

Dear Reader, the feeling of release is immense, you should try it yourself - depicting your daily life in cartoon form, it's far more therapeutic than simply writing it down. You could start your own comic strip and then, because your artistic skills are so much more advanced than my own, yours will really take off. I'll have to try to pretend not to mind when you achieve massive success for your own comic adventures! Then you can thank me when you win a prize, and everyone will say - who is that?

Ahem, anyhoo:

Our conversation (mostly) passes the Bechdel test

That's not the case with my old pals, though

David Bow-Wow-Wowie

What other art form has the power to lift, penetrate, sear through and pierce you?

Comfort Reads

I read this delightful little article from BookTrust the other day:
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-features/features/2019/april/the-soothing-power-of-uncomplicated-pleasures-why-we-should-treasure-comfort-reading
All about how we should encourage children to read whatever they like, without passing judgement and it's a good thing for them to take comfort from books, in an uncertain world.  It talks about how books can be an anchor of reassurance when we are children and that kids are far more likely to re-read their favourite books than adults are. I have to take issue with this point, about it being only in childhood that we return to our favourite reads, as I often re-read books, particularly in times of stress. Sometimes, when I'm reading a particularly good book for the first time and it sends thrills of appreciation through me, I know I'm going to read it again. The last book I read that had this effect on me was Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans.

Evans used to be a comedy TV producer and I think it shows in her writing. Crooked Heart is funny, seemingly, effortlessly so, but also devastatingly moving. It is set during the Second World War and tells the story of ten year old NOEL, a precocious child who has just lost his only family - in the figure of his godmother, MATTIE, and is evacuated to the countryside. He lands up with a woman called VERA, who never has enough money and is constantly scheming to try and scratch a living. When I say that this book is moving I mean that there are moments in it that hook you right in the guts, but it never tips over into sentimentality. The characters seem so real, right from the beginning, that you feel that you are walking right alongside them, smelling the dust as it's stirred up from the roads. Someone once took issue with the fact that my copy of  I Capture the Castle (one of my very favourite books) had a quote from J.K. Rowling on the cover that said that the protagonist of the book was one of the 'most charismatic narrators she'd ever met'. This person sneered at Rowling's use of the word 'met' but surely that is what a really great book should do - bring the characters totally to life for you and make you feel as if you know them. Rowling is right, by the way, Cassandra from I Capture the Castle is immensely charismatic (IMO).

Going back to the childhood reads. I loved reading, as a child, as much as I hated P.E. My obliging mother used to write notes for me, excusing me from P.E or Games, as her own mother had done for her when she was a child (I come from a long line of duffers). Once a sceptical P.E teacher had looked at my note, saying that I couldn't do P.E as I was currently suffering from scurvy, and said;
"Well, you needn't think you can sit there doing nothing [during the P.E lesson] - you'll have to read a book!" She had no idea how happy this made me! Not only had I got out of performing some kind of humiliating assortment of physical contortions, I didn't have to watch anyone else doing it either! And I got to read Prince Caspian. At the time I was making my way through the Chronicles of Narnia, probably for about the fourth time.

So yes - I definitely turned to books in times of crisis, stress, boredom and panic. Books blocked out the rest of the world on public transport, they provided comfort in unfamiliar places, they accompanied me on hospital visits. When I got so stressed about taking my A levels that I thought the chest pains I was having meant I was having a heart attack, I turned to the Paddington books by Michael Bond and they worked - they helped me to relax. The worst thing about being depressed, as a teenager, was that I lost my love of books, they stopped 'working' for me. I never lost my appetite for food, as other people did, I lost my appetite for reading, which was a far greater loss as far as I was concerned.  Thankfully it came back to me.

What books did you love as a child?

Which ones, if any, do you re-read now?

Doggie Tales

Greetings! If you are still coming back after being presented with a series of my poorly drawn cartoons, I salute you! Below are more of the same.

I think the less I 'say' the better, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I've added captions to the ones where the writing is particularly scrawly.

A Harry Potter moment

Meanwhile, life goes on

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