Sometimes it doesn’t take much, getting on a bus in the wrong direction, a few nights of sleeping badly, a baffling breakout on your forehead. Sometimes that’s coupled with being turned down for some funding and spreading yourself too thin.

So, I fancied a bit of joy, and inspired by Somebody Jones and Eve Leigh’s enthusiasm, I will be reading #aplayadayinmay and posting it to my Instagram.

As it stands, this is a slightly masochistic task to engage in as I’m already struggling to juggle various creative projects, but three days into the challenge, and already I’m delighted by the memories and stories the plays bring up (e.g. #day1 was Farah Najib’s recent play Maggots which I had a ticket for but then fell asleep at 5.30pm and missed), and also the low-key shame I have for having not seen/ read the plays to begin with (as was the case with #Day2 Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, #Day3 This Beautiful Future and #Day4 Men Should Weep).

One of the finest plays I saw last year – which I really think was slept on – was Letters from Max by Sarah Ruhl, in which a line stuck with me was this idea of ‘study as secular worship.’

And I loved that as a way of describing what it is we do as artists, whether you’re a writer or maker of any kind. Our love of craft and artistry is an act of faith that may have no discernible outcome, it may just be study for study’s sake. And anything you can do to remind yourself that’s what it is, is is an act of love and worship, reminds you why you do what you do.

Which is why, despite being pulled in many directions, I will continue trying to read a play a day in May. As someone who has the privilege of having to read plays for work, this may prove more difficult, but I’m going to be kind to myself as I proceed

.

around the corner. Suspiciously soon. Alongside writing is the inevitable reading, and the book I’m reading for my writing work right now is Gisele Pelicot’s memoir A Hymn to Life

Being a writer, often requires you reading and engaging with difficult subject matter. I still remember trying to hold my tears back on the bus as I finished Rob Delaney’s wonderful A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney | Hachette UK. His memoir about his 2 year old son Henry, passing away from a brain tumour.

In term’s of Gisele’s memoir I read the book in public. There’s a conscious performativity about it – I do want to be seen with it, but more because I want people to see the book being read. I also because I don’t want to read it in my flat. I want some separation from it, because I’m reading it for work, for research, for resilience, but I don’t want it to enter into my night-time space. This means that I embed good grounding practices from the outset - I read it around fresh air, often where music is playing, in between seeing friends or art.

To people that don’t write, it must seem odd when writers describe how physically exhausting writing is. How it leaves you depleted. It’s not uncommon for me, after a relatively short writing session of 1-2 hours, to need a nap that feels like falling into a short, deep coma. But also, the research that goes into it, can feel similarly depleting. Which as a recovering workaholic, still leaves me baffled and slightly ashamed, but I’m slowly learning to accept the way my brain is.

Reading Gisele’s memoir (apologies for the informality, but don’t want to refer to her by her ex-husbands surname), I want to stop and hug every woman I see. Not a soft hug, but a strong, reassuring hug. My friend says I have shoulders that could swim the English Channel, my mum used to say I looked like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Neither of which felt like a compliment when said to be honest, but I hope I’m able to transfer strength through a good hug. Like the shoulders of the nurse during my first smear test, who had to stop halfway through to give me a hug because I was sobbing.

In James Graham’s wonderful play Punch from last year, one character on remarking on the strength and resilience of another character, simply remarked ‘the shoulders on you.’

There is of course, a cost to engaging with this sort of subject matter, but I always weigh up what you have to gain with what you have to lose. Reading Rob Delaney’s book was devastating, but then, it felt like such a privilege to meet and hear about his little boy Henry, who was so sweet and brave in his too too, short life.

Just so with reading a Hymn to life, getting to know in full how extraordinarily brave this woman is, is not an experience I would miss out on, but also to know about her family, about the fact she’s fallen in love again. What I have gained from reading the book is immense.

And there comes with it, a feeling of responsibility to bear witness. If Gisele can bear to write it down, I can try and read it.

Fair point, though I try not to let it be. I do love to complain (though to misquote self esteem, ‘I’m not complaining, I’m trying to whinge in a new way,’) but I try and figure out some meaning before I inflict my whining on other people.

As it stands, the January business of keeping body and soul together, writing, working, applying for funding, pricing tombstones, all while trying to meditate, enjoy nature, be present, be productive be authentic, batch cook ...

Bleurghhhhh

In all seriousness, I feel like when I substack, I need to wrap each mini essay up in a little bow, try and bring some narrative meaning to my disparate thoughts but honestly, sometimes the business of coming up with meaning in the face of what life throws at you is pretty exhausting. Maybe it’s enough to have gotten to the end of January relatively unscathed, even if you’ve written less than what you would have liked to have done.

(Not relevant to the substack, this is just a photo of some delicious flapjacks I made.)

Last year I read Katherine May’s Wintering where she talks about the medieval habit of two sleeps, and of the waking period in between being used to get work done, or for catching up with people or quietly reflecting.

Maybe the resonance I felt with this was just me trying to rationalise/ find some purpose or meaning behind my 3.30am wake up that happens more often than not, in which I think about work undone, and try and strategise work that’s forthcoming.

This can be its own double-edged sword, and with the sunset currently at 3.55pm (with the sky darkening from much, much earlier in the day), around 5pm when I’m usually revving up for another few Pomodoro’s before bed, I can barely keep my eyes open.

And so, I don’t.

If possible, I have a nap. Confident I’ll be awake in a couple of hours, ready to face some some creative labour and cognitive fatigue square on. A privilege, it absolutely is, but essential to me getting things done in the darker months.

Talking with my Most Productive Writer Friend ™ I say how, even though it seems counterintuitive, the best thing for me to do when I’m busy and overwhelmed is to ... see friends and have fun.

It’s not something I’m always able to do, in fact you usually need to slide a spatula under my bum to lift me off the chair in front of my desk or the couch, but as long as I’m well rested, fed and have hosed myself down I’m great company.

Among other things, I was very lucky on Thursday eve and got to see Self Esteem at Brixton which was just the injection of powerful witch energy I needed. I was with the powerhouse that is Lilly Driscoll, where we spoke about work, the mix of pop music and performance poetry, and how nice it is to have friends in the industry/ work with people who you’ve known for a long time - one of the benefits of growing older that people often overlook.

On the way, I was rereading Sarah Ruhl’s excellent 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write Books | Sarah Ruhl. The essay that tends to stick most with me is the first one, On Interruptions. Having read it years ago, the ideas in it still stay with me. She argues (I think) that life is not an interruption to writing but the source of it.

And living life is a full spectrum activity. Misery, bereavement, anger and despair, some injustice and tears you can assume are going to happen. Fun and socialising, the maintenance of friendship and communion, might require a bit more logistics and organising.

I routinely joke with my friends who are parents, that their children have better social lives than we do, and there is a truth to that joke, and a stark reminder to me that as an adult, you have less opportunity to have fun.

Which is why on Saturday I was desperately trying to bang out a thousand words in order to justify going to the last night of a friends show. And I’m so glad I did x

This week as I was checking in with a therapist, they said ‘you don’t find rest easy do you?’ in response to the list of positive things I’d done for my mental health and wellbeing™. When I relayed the therapists' comments to a friend I saw the next afternoon she said ‘Girl you don’t need a therapist to tell you that! I’ve been telling you for time!’

This led me to reflect on why I find it so hard to rest, and the answers I came up with were: -

1. I’ll enjoy it so much I’ll never want to do anything else and will rest in inertia for the rest of time and won’t achieve anything I want to

2. I’ll get stuck in inertia and sink into a depression from which I’ll never leave

3. If I rest, I’ll become poor (this makes even less sense than the first two.)

To try and combat this (again, me trying to project manage my inability to rest), I’ve been spending more time in nature – very good for you – but then the next day will beat myself up if I’m not a productivity queen who immediately feels the benefits of a day off.

This I suppose cuts to the heart of the uncertainty of being a writer in which if you don’t write no one’s going to force you to. Any professional writer you know has left a party early, given up or reduced drinking, or turned down social plans because they need to prioritise some time at a computer. Just last Sunday I was walking with a friend and their dog in a park in Brighton, and as we got to the beach, I said I had to turn back to do some writing and would come down to the beach later. They looked at me gob smacked, surprised that on a beautiful bank holiday Sunday in Brighton, I would opt to sit at a dark kitchen table by myself.

To be fair though, he had a point. While I was happy with the work I did, and did go to the beach later, it did mean it wasn’t a restful day. So, while I met my writing target, I was still back to the drawing board in terms of Rest and Relaxation, which would go a long way towards explaining why my brain was mush when I had a meeting the following morning to fill out an Arts Council form. I always remember my friend saying that we’re a bit like mobile phones, in that sometimes the battery runs down completely, and charging it for 5-10 mins isn’t going to cut it – you need to plug it in and take it’s time until it’s back at full (which begs the question, why do we take better care of our phones than ourselves?’)

So yeah, I ... don’t have any big solutions. Currently, nature, hiking and camping are my jam as well as reading. I’ve been very much enjoying. With that in mind, I’ve been very much enjoying The Brain at Rest by Joseph Jebelli Joseph Jebelli | Neuroscientist and writer to help me shift my perspective on this.

Some of my work is autobiographical, some isn’t. Should be fairly straightforward, but it’s not. Even in work which I’ve explicitly stating is based on my own experience, contains fiction, in order to correspond to a larger truth, to underline a structure I’ve chosen, perhaps to communicate meaning.

Sometimes I take something I’m concerned or angry about, extrapolate events and stories to make a narrative, and then people assume it’s biographical anyway. Which can be annoying. Especially when most playwrights would say their work contains some element of them as creator.

Sometimes I’m inspired by events that have happened in other people’s lives. But usually, those events are not pleasant events.

It's very hard when you present someone else’s biographical information in a story context - because you present a facet of a real person for the purpose of communicating meaning but stripped of the context of who that person is, and the difficulties they've gone through. You’ve perhaps selected or curated one moment from a life to make a point, represent a story beat or something audience’s rarely see, and in the process, it can feel like you’ve thrown someone you care about under the bus for the sake of a satisfying narrative.

Worse yet, is the way that, as the storyteller, the story by definition aggrandises you, even in a story where you yourself are an unreliable protagonist or have done something questionable. The guilt that comes with this can be disproportionate, as people ladle praise on you for the bravery of being self-aware and admitting your faults.

I suppose I’m thinking about this more this week in the context of grief. In Maggie Nelson’s excellent book, The Red Parts, she talks about how you’re only able to see someone’s life as a whole story once they are dead. While they are alive, you are so consumed with your present tense relationship to them, that considering them as a whole person is just too overwhelming. So, overwhelming that in our day-to-day life with friends and loved ones, we develop cheat codes for managing their faults, ‘they’re like this because of this,’ or ‘calm down, they only react like this because of’ ... and so forth. These cheat codes work as emotional scaffolding to help us function, and sometimes the scaffolding works better than others.

It’s not however, all doom and gloom this week. A small extract from my play Sex & Violence is being performed alongside some truly astonishing artists, at a fundraiser for ‘s excellent initiative DE-MYS-TIFY, which supports actors from lower socio-economic backgrounds. It’s going to be a fantastic night. I’ll be there with a crisp diet coke if anyone wants to say hi.

Went to the change area, scarfed a banana and handful of nuts, and tried to go back on the machine again, but it just wasn’t enough. And that’s when I decided to call it quits and go have some lunch. Fuck it, I’d been to the gym yesterday, would probably go the day after next, it was enough.

What I love about any kind of athletic activity is what it teaches me about writing and vice versa.

Like many in theatre, I submitted a Developing Your Creative Practice application to the Arts Council last week (cheers to us!), and then the next day, was astonished that I couldn’t just sit down and bash out some writing for two hours. Weird, almost like there was ... a correlation between the two. Instead, I have a spotless flat (writers cliche #1), clean bedding, and three movies on my watchlist viewed.

Because amazingly, I’m not a machine, and maybe it’s okay that I can’t just bounce from one difficult task to another completely difficult task consecutively. Which is why I was able to wake up this morning, journal, and hit my keyboard like Jessica Fletcher on speed, but was also why 70 minutes in the gym was not happening.

I don’t think people give themselves anywhere near enough credit for juggling deadlines and tasks. I’m amazed I don’t see more people just sitting cross legged on the pavement, crying at the overwhelm. It’s like when I went up Snowdon and rocked up to work the next day and was knackered. I’m not a 25-year-old marine, why did I think my body could do that? And if my body can’t do that, my brain certainly can’t.

Which is one of many reasons why I found myself at the Nicolas Cage lookalike contest at the Prince Charles Cinema this Friday afternoon (see guardian article here ‘My moment of glory’: Nicolas Cage lookalikes assemble in London | Nicolas Cage | The Guardian). What a delight and it was followed by his latest unhinged thriller The Surfer a glorious riff on Australian horror classic Wake in Fright.

This isn’t necessarily, something I had time to do, and it’s certainly something I was lucky enough to afford on an early bank holiday Friday evening, but the more time I spend writing, the more time I spend strategising things that make me feel good, and that take me out of my own head.

Distinct from ‘wellness’ and how it has been monetised, there should also be space for fun, silliness and if possible, awe. For the latter, I often have to go further afield (literally, I’m going to Snowdon next weekend,) but where possible, I try and fold the first two into my day to day.

When feeling low a piece of advice I cherished – and still do – is that it’s important to continue doing fun things, even and especially if they don’t feel like fun at the time, because there’s going to come a point when they do feel fun again. Things are hard enough, and you don’t want to get out of practice of having a good time.

Want to know how to cope with feedback? Me too, this is why I’ve developed this workshop to help demystify the feedback process in writing, and to help people get the best out of their work https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1319836218659?aff=oddtdtcreator

I get to the theatre, the weather is sunny and watch three short plays I’ve never seen before by a writer I love, who died the year I was born. The day is an embarrassment of riches. The woman in the row in front of me strikes up a conversation with me.

Part of why I love writing my Substack, is that it gives me space to take a collection of seemingly disparate thoughts and ideas and gives me a small space to make sense of them. To attach or derive some meaning from the events of a week, and in doing so, have a sense of ... insight Illumination? Agency

Which ... I mean there are worse ways of passing the time. But having a brain hard wired to find meaning, often means you aren’t always as present as you could be. And not being present means you miss a lot. Simple everyday pleasures. The shift in seasons is a gentle reminder to take small pleasures as and when I can get them.

I was always the girl in the class with my hand up, I had the answer and was desperate to tell everyone else. And as a writer, I always want to say the clever insightful thing that no one else is saying. Same energy.

This is in direct contrast to the writing – books, plays, substacks etc – that I enjoy. As I get older, I find I’m less interested in what people think, I’m more interested in who they are.

Even today sometimes, out of nowhere, the line 'you're tearing this ska band apart!' pops into my head and I have to stop what I'm doing for 5, 10 minutes until the laughter subsides. 
 
Less than a year after my uncle passed my mum died, and the hole that left in my life remains. Like most people who lose a parent, the year following that was a bit if a blip, after which point I decided to stop being an arsehole get my shit together (getting shit together in this instance meant taking up hiking and giving up drinking, like a total fucking cliche.)  
 
But even in the darkness of grief there was humour. My immediate thought after my mum passed, after 'nothing will ever be the same again,' and ' I will never truly be loved again,' was about how fucking hungry I was. Cue what was probably the bleakest visit to a McDonald's drive through you could ever imagine. 
 
I was lucky enough to see Janey on her 'Not Dead Yet' tour when she brought it to London with her daughter Ashley. Impressively, she did this tour while undergoing chemo. This gig took place two days before what would have been mum’s birthday which felt significant. 
 
Janey was a similar age and generation to my mum; both grew up with considerable hardship and trauma in working class Glasgow, and her humour always reminded me of mum.  
 
Towards the end of her gig, Janey told a story about her mum, who always told her to stand up to bullies, and how she regrets not singing with her as a child, before her mum was murdered.  
But what stayed with me was Janey’s reveal, that even though her mum died when she was a child, she still misses her to this day, and that even as she faced terminal cancer, she longed for her mum. 
 
As I sit typing this in my local cafe, I want to cry. I will always miss my mum. Always wish I'd been a better daughter, but that doesn't mean I don't laugh. And while I sobbed uncontrollably at the end of Janey's gig, I knew I’d spent far longer howling with laughter. 

• A man asked today where was my husband. The only other person who's ever made this assumption and asked was my relative with frontal lobe dementia, so I let them off the hook. 

• When booking a trip online, I was assumed to be a man and that my friend was my wife 

• When a tour booker was told my age, he joked that I could be his Sugar Mummy. 

• I sleep with a pair of scissors under my hotel pillow and place a suitcase on front of my door as a trip hazard 

• I wish my belly was smaller and that I hadn't had desert the previous evening 

• My friend sends me a link to an article about Gisele Pelicot and her extraordinary bravery 

• I save the number for the British embassy on my phone (I actually think this is a solid decision rather than a by-product of anxiety). 

• I’m having lunch by a beach where, when talking about Gisele Pelicot I talk to my friend about my own abuse. I somehow doubt my abuser is on a beautiful beach, talking shit about me so, in some way ... I win? 

• I remember being in a bar with a friend in London two weeks ago and when my friend went to the bathroom, a guy at the next table loudly told a joke about the difference between bitches and sluts. 

Fuck me being a woman is exhausting - and this is me, literally on holiday. 
 
What does it mean to live in a world where your irrational fears are not irrational? 
 

Anyway, I can’t end this substack on a bum note. So, I'm going to plug something I signed up for Women’s Aid Step Forward Challenge  

Women's Aid Federation of England: Step Forward for Survivors Challenge (enthuse.com) 
 
In which I'll walk 60 miles in September, to raise money for their good work. 
 
I've long despised the necessity of these campaigns, how they place the onus on individuals to make up the shortfall to essential services which the government should be providing.  
I spoke to a friend, who works for a women’s charity, about this concern. She kindly reminded me that absolutely, this should not be necessary and wide-ranging structural change needs to be advocated for, in the meantime, people who are struggling are suffering, and even a small amount of money can make a huge difference. 

Love and power x

By the nature of the work, writing can render me quite myopic, focusing on my own petty grievances and suffering, and lifted up my head to see what weather patterns are affecting the people around me can be a regenerative, empathetic act.  

This is different of course to caring about others when I don’t have the capacity, people pleasing at the expense of your own mental health, it is a way of making meaningful human connection, that makes you want to be strong for others. And it is in doing this that I learn how to be strong and show up for yourself. 

I once had a play I’d written performed at a festival that, in retrospect, was not settling well into the space, which I interpreted as evidence of the writing’s innate awfulness. On the phone to the director, as they drove from another job, I sobbed at them that the play was awful, that it didn’t work, and they needed to pull it. They murmured ‘you poor thing,’ and bizarrely, that was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. And not only was it exactly what I needed to hear, but I then knew what I needed to say and do when someone else was suffering.  

It has of course come full circle, as when the same director's little girl came running at me with a skinned knee a few weeks ago, I knew what to say to her, just as I knew what to say to my friend.  

At this point in my life, when I receive feedback, I agree with pretty much everything that’s being said to me. The difficulty comes when I don’t know how to action the feedback immediately. At the moment for example, I’m working through a list of notes, fixing/ incorporating anything that seems easy or straightforward, while allowing the more complicated notes to percolate. Often the more complicated notes either cut to the heart of why the story isn’t working, or on areas of your own craft I need to develop further.  

It's often unfairly assumed that writers are overly-sensitive to receiving feedback – which I don’t think is entirely fair, as it does objectively kind of suck. I feel like I’m very good at taking feedback, but can be very, very slow to action said feedback. Even when I absolutely know the right thing to do it can take days, weeks, sometimes months to put these excellent notes into practice. I’m very circumspect in who I ask for notes from and have been lucky to work with some truly excellent collaborators. 

Recently I was watching a documentary on how forensic teams in the UK examine crime scenes. There was a phrase that one of the contributors said, that made me pause, stop what I was doing and sit down to write this essay. They said, about the process of investigating a crime and piecing together evidence, that ‘you were constantly growing, moving the parameters with fresh information.’  

Constantly moving the parameters. Which is why of course actioning notes, even when you agree with them, is so challenging. Because it’s never just changing a line, or deepening a character, or developing a strand of plot, you have to shift the parameters in which you’re working in your head before you can even start doing these things.  

The play you’re writing comprises the medium in which you’ve chosen to tell your story (in this case theatre), the form or structure you’ve employed to tell this story, and the actual content of the story you are telling. Each one of these things is massive, and has its own developmental process in your head, on the page, and in the eventual relationship the piece will have with an audience. Unconsciously, the parameters in which you’re working shift and evolve without you trying (e.g. you see a film on a similar subject, talk about the play with a friend and they provide an invaluable insight, you see a piece of theatre whose actor/ audience relationship knocks your socks off.)  

If you’re writing or re-writing a play, you’re often actively engaged in the process of looking for ways in which to move the parameters of the genre you’re working in, in moving the parameters of the form/ structure you’re working in or looking to move the parameters of the story you’re telling. Possibly you’re trying to do all three, and that, is, huge. A huge intellectual and creative undertaking.  

I’m often asked what it takes to be a good writer, in the past I’ve reductively said a willingness to take feedback. I don’t disbelieve what I said, but I think what I meant to say more accurately, to change and grow the piece you’re creating. Some writers, I’ve seen take and action notes as easily as I swallow lunch after a 5km run. They’re just able to fold it into their practice like a boxer rolling with a punch. And other people cannot. You can learn to do this, to develop the skills to shift the parameters in which you’re working, to allow other thoughts to shift you, but it is not easy. Not easy to learn the merits of doing it, and not easy to action these shifts even when you recognise the merits of them.    

I have a friend who’s undertaking a national apprenticeship to be a coach, and she has to meet a certain number of hours to gain her qualification. She offered to coach me over the Summer and I gladly accepted, opening with  

‘I know my problem is that I have a number of diffuse goals.’ 

She said, ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’ 

Which was nice to hear, but always sort of surprised me. Because I always feel like I do need to explain my choices. 

•  I'm 26, and flush with pride at having a short play I've written produced for the first time. After this event, a literary manager I admire comes up to me and says 'well, you know, you can't be a writer and a director. You have to pick one job.'  

I don’t write another play for ten years  
 

• I'm 34 and having a meeting with a female producer. She asks me what I do, and I say that while my primary focus is directing, I would like to write, and I often end up producing my own theatre work by default. 'Ah, that's because women often try and do too much.'  

Now I feel like a bad feminist for working in different disciplines.  
 

• It’s the point in the pandemic, when you're able to meet one person for coffee. I’m with a friend and he's talking about a friend of his, a male theatre director who’s struggling, and he says 'ah, but he's not like you, he only directs, he doesn't teach or do dramaturgy.' I say - 
   
  'What makes you think that's a choice, and not economic necessity?' 
   
  He said 
   
  'Oh.' 

The first two, basically implanted self-limiting beliefs within me, that took a lot of time to recover from, that last, involved the perpetration of a myth.  

I'm tired.  

A system is created whereby it’s not possible to specialise in one job role and maintain oneself financially, but where people are judged for not being able to do so.  

Honestly, the day I realised that no one was making it work, that most people had remote PA/ cafe/ bar jobs they weren’t talking about, or didn’t need to do that, was a revelation. It was something I really hated when I first started out (when NO ONE talked about the bullshit jobs they had) so I always made sure to mention temping or my bar work whenever I worked with actors.  

And I am aware, that I’m actually doing quite well. It still baffles me that I have money to go for a cup of coffee, every day if I so wish. The coach I’m seeing asked me, ‘what does success look like to you’ and honestly, it’s that. No savings, no hope of ever owning my own home, that ability to go sit in the sun with a cup of coffee, weather and work permitting.  

But I still wonder, what would have happened if someone had just accepted what I said about being a writer and director at face value, and encouraged it? 

As an industry, we’re very bad at not trusting artists and professionals, when they tell us what they need. Not giving someone a job because they’re overqualified, as the applicant cries bitter tears, because regardless of their qualifications, they chose to apply the job, and usually for good reason.  

4 years ago actress Michelle Williams accepted an Emmy acceptance speech for her work on Fosse/ Verdon, and in it, she praised the producers and makers of the drama. 

‘I see this as an acknowledgement of what is possible when a woman trusted her to discern her own needs, feel safe enough to voice them, and respected enough that they’ll be heard.’ 

She then lists a number of things that she asked for to perform this role – more dance classes, voice lessons, a different wig – she heard yes, and while acknowledging that these things cost more work and money, she was trusted that she knew what she needed to do her job.  

‘When you put value into a person, it empowers that person. ‘ 

(Seriously, you should all go find this speech on YouTube, it’s amazing.) 

What would happen if we believed artists when they told us who they were, and trusted them when they told us what they needed to do their job?  

Sadly, the bones and muscles in my ankles and feet need some rest and I have to cancel a much looked forward to hike in the Scottish Highlands. On the grander scale of things, this is what I would refer to as an ‘underfloor heating problem’ (e.g. if your problem is your underfloor heating, it’s not a fucking problem) but this is quietly devastating. Reconnecting with my own physical strength and resilience, and affirming my relationship with nature, was such a salve after my mother died (I marked the one-year anniversary of her passing by walking the West Highland Way, having never hiked before) and to be unable to physically do this, feels like a failure of sorts. Although I know that intellectually it’s not, that it would be foolhardy to attempt such a feat while injured, in a sparsely populated area, tens of miles from the nearest hospital and with no mode of transport to hand, it feels like a failure, and my heart hurts.

What hurts more is the idea that this is somehow all wrapped in my self-worth, that if I were stronger, fitter, better, this injury would not have happened.

In line with this, my mantra of acceptance this week, is the title of Sonya Renee Taylor’s excellent 2018 book The Body is not an Apology. E.g.

Today I’ve submerged my feet and ankles in ice water and Epsom salts for 15 minutes.

The Body is Not an Apology

I ate the remainder of my birthday Lindt chocolates.

The Body is Not an Apology

Felt a pang of jealousy as I saw people out jogging in the sun.

The Body is Not an Apology

Preparing for the hike I read Nan Sheperd’s modern classic The Living Mountain - about her life walking in and around the Cairngorms. 
 
Here I came across the fact of how incredibly tough Heather is. How it survives ice and snow, drought and frost how it can be burnt and still survives and in fact, Heather can thrive after being burnt.  
 
Imagine that level of toughness. Little purple flowers putting hiking bros to shame. 

It's not lost on me that hiking, camping and the outdoors is something I've always had access to. That there's a reason the Duke of Edinburgh scheme exists and that adults take kids hiking and camping as its 'character building.' But it always felt a bit inaccessible to me. If you're poor, why would you walk for hours at a time? If you felt unsure of where you're rent is next coming from it seems daft to sleep in a tent for fun? 

I did vaguely have opportunities to participate in these sorts of things as a teenager but honestly, when life was so uncertain and so unstable I didn't see the point.

So, yeah. This is a season of recuperating and reflection instead. Listening to the body and what it needs. Which has its own gems to reveal.

I replied to my friend, I love how much we enjoy these jokes, and talking about how much we want to be lazy, when in fact we’re both incredibly driven, hard-working people.

I said, while lying on my couch on a Friday night.

I’m low key berating myself for being lazy, forgetting of course that I’m still resting as I overdid it working out the day before, and fainted from … dehydration? Not eating? Overdoing it? And I’m still feeling pretty ropey. Also, am pretty burnt out from my day job, and the mountain of work I need to do before I go on annual leave feels unscalable. Made all the more unscalable, due to the burnout, which means I need to break, which I nearly have, but …  

And round the merry go round we go. Round and round …

In my twenties I worked. A lot. Too hard, too much. Sixty-hour weeks working shitty jobs to make ends meet on top of studying, making theatre, being. A friend once said I’d work myself to death, a phrase that haunts me.

Reflecting on this, I know that objectively an hour of my working time now is equivalent to 3 or 4 hours of intellectual work in my twenties (and yes, I despise myself for making such a comparison, but I’m using it to try and soothe my anxiety so please go with it) but I’m still concerned about the number of creative hours I’m logging.  

At this point, I have a better work-life balance but still worry I’m not doing enough, not writing enough, not developing enough professionally or artistically. I know I shouldn’t worry, but I want to howl at the moon TEACH ME HOW NOT TO WORRY!!!!

I’m going hiking in about a week and a half and … I’m not ready. Though in truth, I’m never ready, I write this having coming back early from a walk that was too short, while I carried too little weight. I cut it short as I started to feel a worrying twinge in the side of my foot/ ankle, that I developed on the way to the theatre after another tough workout the previous week.

Teach me how not to worry about this. Because worst case scenario, I’m on an island off the coast of the Hebrides and I’m unable to complete my hike/ camp in the way that I would like. Which wouldn’t be a problem, if I didn’t wrap up my ability to achieve with my self-worth and value. Quelle fucking surprise.

This is a very long-winded way of saying, that I think I’m going to start working harder, but for the things that matter.