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.