[𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟖] 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐲⁣⁣

[𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟖] 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐲⁣⁣
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When I was a child, I always had a book on the go. Something in my backpack/in my hand. I’ve lost this a bit now. I love trains because when there’s nothing else to do but read, it’s easy to concentrate. As I got older and my parent’s rules about TV disappeared, I moved on to intense love for TV series that I watch repeatedly, stuff like The Big Bang Theory, or Seinfeld, which don’t need much attention. Or podcasts. I love This American Life, Serial, and Heavyweight. When I have one of these on the go that I love, life is so much easier. ⁣⁣
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The sociologist Brené Brown was the first person I’ve heard talking about this in terms recognisable to me. When she’s processing new data, she first has to spend a weekend watching all the crime dramas that she has already seen, watching them over and over. When it comes to writing books, I will often put The Big Bang Theory on in the background and eventually, it gets turned off as I’m sucked into the writing project. We get anxious when we start a new task because our brains dislike uncertainty. Put a story on, and our anxiety is entertained by something, and we can think clearly. At least, this is the way it feels for me.⁣⁣
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But I sometimes worry that by multitasking/not immersing myself in what’s happening in the real world, I am abusing my relationship with story. I hear that some writers cut themselves off from any other form of story when they are working on something. I bet the terror/purity of that makes for interesting work. But I simply don’t know how to work that way. My life feels balanced and that it works well when it has three things in it: a story I’m immersed in, some piece of writing I’m working on, and being a midwife. The story thing is about escapism, learning and somewhere to put anxiety. Writing helps me make sense of and catalogue what I’m learning. And midwifery helps with the real-life bit, reassuring me that I’m not just engaged with proxy emotion. You can be anywhere else but present when you’re midwifing, that’s one of the reasons I like it.⁣⁣
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When I try to force myself into starting to write without a story on in the background, I can do it, but I'm unhappy and it takes extra energy. When I tried not to be a midwife, it worked in that I got a lot of writing done, but I felt pretty unstable. My current set-up works apart from the side effect that I never feel like I'm getting enough done.⁣⁣
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I think this is what life is like, though. We are fragile creatures. We all have crutches that get us to the next point. Maybe my need to be in the middle of a story is a weakness, but the other side of the coin is I like to write. Like Leonard Cohen says, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘯.⁣⁣
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All my best,⁣⁣
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Ellie.