Part of making this space for myself is to have a place to write. To see if I can. If I do. Where it leads, whatever that might look like. Not to worry, as I often do, about working out each of the steps and thinking about them and trying to imagine where it will lead and take control I don’t have. Instead, just to do something and let it unfold.
Writing here involves, to state the obvious, actually writing.
So many times since the last piece I wrote I’ve thought about writing. Felt frustrated I was somewhere else, doing something else, and couldn’t write. Balled up frustration at myself not making the most of this space, opportunity, life. Trying not to let that cascading frustration escalate but to do something about it. To write.
Here I am.
Realising that a big part of why I’ve not been here is the worry about what I’d write next. About wanting to make sure that it straight away starts to take shape and what that would look like as a sequence of pieces. Looking at notes to try and calibrate things – that idea might be too soon, that one isn’t quite ready – on and on. Thinking and wondering and, obviously, not writing. Not using this space for the very thing I set out to do and this is only the second piece in.
The worry of doing the wrong thing, thinking about the potential impacts of the imperfect path stopping any action being taken. Feeling concerned about doing something that might not be the best path forward is something that I’ve come to realise weighs more heavily on me than I’d realised. My beautiful husband Chris died just over twelve years ago at the age of 32. I’d not quite appreciated how deeply that sense of the fragility and temporary nature of life had sunk into my bones, into my DNA. Or maybe I knew in some general or other ways but not quite in that dimension. I’m lucky enough to have a mortgage and a pension and be able to save. I book holidays and other lovely things far in advance. It’s not exactly seat of the pants territory for those type of things. Which meant I’d not quite realised how, in other dimensions of life planning, I find it harder to do so. That to do something which might not be the best thing or represent all that I am or could be, to accept that one moment can’t hold everything, is something so obvious yet clearly not something I’ve properly been able to accept. Looking at the blank page is then just an ideal situation for that kind of worry to crystallise. Every cliché and misplaced comma is a reminder of the transience.
The tyranny of the blank page holding me back. The idea that whatever next goes here needs to be right. Not defining what right is, holding it loosely enough that it can be something I beat myself with but don’t properly examine. The blankness of the page feeling a mirror of myself – blank and lacking in ideas, or at least of ideas that merit being written down and got out of my head. Lacking ideas that are useful or will make a difference. That fear of the blank page, the road not taken, the words left unsaid, so many metaphors – clichés I know, but I write on regardless to just keep writing – which lead us to we think we’re doing the right thing. Looking after ourselves by keeping ourselves away from things which could open us up to ridicule.
Having this space and intention and desire has helped me come back to here. To write. Here I am.
Reminding myself that really the page isn’t as blank as I think it is. There’s so much to say and think about, yet it can be so hard to remember that. Trying also to hold as truth that it’s not necessarily about having the answers or ideas, so much as creating or holding a space to ask questions. Reminding myself of the need to play and try and see. Then when I remember that, it’s easy to write. It’s always felt easy to write when that’s the case.
To write then, is to actively engage with all of that annoying, potential-filled imperfection and time passing, time that is perhaps being wasted. Trusting that what’s gone before can be turned into something that can be used, or maybe even beautiful or useful.
It’s been heartening to read in Hattie Crisell’s generous book ‘In Writing’ actual writers talking about how they have to grapple with themselves and the blank page and the nonsense they feel they’ve written to try and make sense of things. Thinking they can turn something that’s fragile and messy into something that can make sense, resonate and connect with others. Reading about how writers that I’ve read and enjoyed and admired and savoured have felt their own first drafts were awful. Doubted they could make it better, hated themselves and their work along the way, and even then felt disappointed by the end with the gap between their idea and what they ended up publishing.
To be shown, again and again that it’s totally normal and all part of the process that things need to be edited and amended. Cutting sections and ideas, with whole character and plot lines going to better serve the overall piece. Taking time away to get a different view, seeing it as its own thing rather than a part of yourself and all that gets weighed down with.
Doing all of that however requires doing the work. The sometimes slow, sometimes seemingly non-existent work. Painstaking and unclear at times, at others a clarity that feels effortless but is the result of all that’s gone before. No work, no words, no chance to try and make that idea into something that’s actually really real or useful or creates some kind of motivation, connection.
Much of which felt familiar from thinking about what’s needed on climate change. People turning up and doing the sometimes slow, sometimes seemingly non-existent work. Just trying and seeing and learning and iterating. We need to get more and more people involved and doing things. Actually taking action and trying, day after day.
Then – I think maybe not, the worry and calibrating against what’s needed steps in. I think then that we don’t have the time to faff around, we need to get things right. The urgency of the situation, the science and daily looking around the seeing. The news stories and the accumulated heartbreak of stories. There isn’t the time to get it wrong, we need to take action which is actually going to meaningfully make a difference. The more we cut carbon now the more chance we give for more people now and in the future to lead lives of dignity. It’s not just about meeting arbitrary carbon reduction targets but it’s also about the shape of the decarbonisation curve – the more we can manage the transition the gentler the curve, which is better for people, planet and the social fabric of our lives. Which brings me back to the blank page.
We need new stories... 