tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85929275377791332832024-03-18T20:06:19.808-07:00Ava EldredAvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-58715517759288037532018-09-26T10:05:00.001-07:002018-09-26T10:05:51.591-07:00Exactly what I said; Word for Word. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The short and romanticised version of
this story is that I badly sprained my ankle (walking on flat pavement in
trainers) and in the moment before I hit the ground realised that living
cautiously is completely pointless, because you may well fall anyway. Of
course, the coherency of the thought came later, a sort of beacon of future
productivity during the dull days of resting and elevating that followed, but
that is essentially what was going through my mind as my foot gave way,
followed very quickly by a moment of specific clarity:</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Stop stalling. You have known what
this book is for almost a decade.</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">But I don’t write short stories, hence
the application for a place on a novel writing course, so it seems more
appropriate to tell the long version, with all of it’s pauses and nuances that
go some way to explaining why, although I began drafting this particular novel
in the first months of my twenties, it has taken me almost ten years to reach a
place where I can seriously dedicate the best of my time to it.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I have spent the past seven years
writing musical theatre with varying degrees of success. Initially, I wrote
musicals because I was inexperienced enough to believe that whatever people
were offering to pay me for was what I should be doing. I was painfully aware
that making money from writing was supposed to be difficult, and often wrongly
accepted jobs that were not right for me because <i>what if I was never offered
another</i>? I knew that I had to write <i>something,</i> and be put under
artistic pressure if only by myself, to be able to write my novel, so for as
long as I could without losing integrity, I carried on, and stockpiled all of
the tricks-of-the-writing-trade, both consciously taught and serendipitously
discovered, to be applied to the work that nobody was commissioning, but that
kept my creativity intact.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Subconsciously, it was probably also
because musical theatre writers are questioned about their work a lot less
vigorously than they should be; the ridiculous and nonsensical are often
skimmed over, because musicals are supposed to be entertaining and accessible
to a mass audience above all else, and anyway, <i>will anybody even notice if
it doesn’t quite make sense</i>? (Yes. That’s why so many people think they
hate musicals). Essentially, I wrote musicals because they came easily, and
they came easily because I could get away with never going too far, or too
deep. I did not have to give the best of me, and in some ways that was
encouraged - keep it light; keep it easy. But so begins a vicious cycle - you
keep it easy because you’re scared of revealing too much. You’re scared of
revealing too much because you’ve spent so long keeping it easy. It took me a
long time to realise that if you're procrastinating through fear of failure,
the thing you’re scared of failing at must be important.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">My first show, The 8th Fold, was the
only British musical to be accepted in to the 2014 New York International
Fringe Festival, and for two months that Summer I called myself a writer because
I had a festival ID card to validate the label. (It actually said ‘Playwright’,
which didn’t feel like the right title at all, but I embraced it regardless).
In the 4 years that have followed, there have certainly been times when I have
worn that title comfortably, but the reality of living in London as a working
class woman has meant I have always had to work full time to support myself,
and whilst it often seems that almost everyone of my generation with creative
aspirations has had to adopt the hyphen method of working in order to thrive, I
simply did not have the confidence in my work to sustain myself as a
writer-producer-usher-ticketing assistant-whatever else I was doing that week.
To have any chance of success whilst living like that, you have to be <i>absolutely
sure</i> of your artistic endeavours, and sometimes I was, but I learned very
quickly that sometimes is not often enough. While there have been moments it
felt like selling out, taking a 10-6 office job a few years ago rather than
playing diary-tetris trying to fit in numerous small creative things has been
revelatory for my writing. Earning regular money, knowing when my free time
will come and managing that, and engaging my brain in a completely different
way has meant that when I sit down to write, I can be <i>all there</i>. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I realised recently that, having
dropped out of university for a theatre job (and because my course had very few
practical elements which I found frustrating), I have never seriously invested
in my own development. Until I do so, I have no business questioning why I have
not been a conventional ‘</span><span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: IT; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">success</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">’,
and on a somewhat selfish level, I work far better when I have accountability,
be that to my tutors, my peers, or simply myself. This course is a significant
financial commitment for me, and one I want to make in order to place
responsibility on myself. Of course, making sure the work is done so as to not
let down my tutors and peers will be a notable form of motivation for me to
finish my draft, but beyond that I will not allow myself to commit with
anything less than 100%, because to part with all of that money and not show up
completely, both physically and metaphorically, is simply not an option. I will
not be able to do this twice. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">In 2017 I spent the summer working with
the author Laura Jane Williams on her online course Don’t Be A Writer, Be A
Storyteller. The course was structured around weekly lectures which lead to
writing assignments and culminated in a short piece of peer-edited fiction. I
initially registered for the course because feedback from someone working in
publishing and therefore very aware of the things that work and don’t, for her
at least, was something that had never been available to me before. It would be
reductive of the quality of the course to say that I signed up simply because I
wanted somebody to tell me if I was good enough (which is somewhat subjective
anyway), but I honestly wanted a push, and a reader who did not know me to
validate what I thought I knew - that the time was approaching to stop saying “one
day” and just <i>get on with it</i>. The peer editing element of the course was
interesting to me, as I had previously struggled to take notes without feeling
slighted, or disheartened that my intentions were not translating in the ways
that I had hoped. I learned very quickly that I had almost definitely
encountered the wrong editors until that point, and that the relationship
between myself as the writer and my partner as the editor, as well as vice
versa, was personal and extremely specific, while simultaneously nothing to do
with me at all. It was entirely about my work. The course also taught me the
basics of reading critically, and giving notes in a way which I hope was
encouraging and productive. As the assignments for the course were very precise
I did not leave with a piece I wanted to further develop, but I got what I came
for - the published author told me I had <i>a voice</i>, and for the first time
I listened, despite it being the same validation, almost word for word, that
friends and teachers had been giving me for 15 years. I stopped half-heartedly
committing to theatre collaborations that did not excite me, took the pile of
ten year old notebooks from the bottom of my wardrobe, and opened a new
document.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">My aim for this course is to finish a
draft of a novel. Technically a second draft, given that the first happened and
was lost to the graveyard of broken laptops somewhere around 2009, but I choose
to see it as beginning again, because the woman who wrote that novel and the
woman who is writing this are, in so many ways, fundamentally different people.
Broadly, it is a Young Adult novel about teenage friendships, and the idea that
for so many people those intense bonds are far more interesting relationships
than first romantic loves. Specifically, it is about female friendships rooted
in music fandom, the joy and suffering of shared obsessive love, and the idea
that it’s easier, somehow, to confide in people just slightly out of reach, be
that seeking comfort in the music itself or, far more interestingly to me, the
other people reaching out for the same thing. Teenage music fans are renowned
for having feelings in abundance, and an openness in expressing those feelings,
which I have thought for a long time correlates perfectly with the almost fearless
style of writing Young Adult fiction is so rooted in. The emotional truth of
characters who are simultaneously terrified and so much braver than they could
possibly know fascinates me as a writer, and that juxtaposition is so exciting
to explore. Young Adulthood is also typically a point of change for so many
people, which is thrilling in terms of character and plot - almost anything
could happen. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I researched a few different options
when I decided that a course was a sensible next move for me, including
creative writing MA’s, much shorter programs, and other academies, but realised
I was once again preparing myself to settle for options that did not challenge
or scare me. Of course Faber was the one I wanted. It is practical, intensive,
and will give me access to the best quality of tutors, publishing
professionals, and fellow students. For six months, no matter what is happening
outside of the classroom, I will be able to call myself a writer. I made myself
close all of the other browser tabs and just start typing.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The ankle almost entirely healed, by
the way. It still hurts when I’m tired, or hormonal, or feel like sitting down
in the middle of a yoga class, but largely it’s fine. It also wasn’t as
dramatic as I made it sound - that <i>is</i> exactly how it happened, but I was
thinking about the novel anyway, as I often am these days. The thought and the
falling might not even have been related. That moment of specific clarity might
still have happened had I managed to stay upright, but it makes a better story
this way.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">A few years ago, I watched a video of
Lin-Manuel Miranda giving a commencement speech at a university. He said, among
many wise and wonderful things, that he thinks that everyone is a little bit of
both: a little bit “<i>wait for it” </i>and a little bit “<i>I am not throwing
away my shot”</i>. That, he said, was the key to success - finding that
balance. Is that the mark of a successful writer? I don’t know, but it
certainly made sense to me. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">For the entirety of my twenties, I
wrote on the logic that eventually I would reach a point where it was my turn;
where the words I put in an order that meant something would mean something to <i>me</i>,
and not just the people paying me to do so. I have learned so many things about
being a writer in the past decade, and two months before I turn 30, I am
finally ready to put those things in to practice. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I learned that while they don’t really
care if your script makes sense, producers are a stickler for a vocative comma.
Writing professional theatre was a better education in technique and style than
anything I learned at school.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I have learned to edit myself, and to
feel grateful rather than affronted when others edit me. I have learned to be a
storyteller (not a writer) for the duration of a Summer course, and
subsequently how to be both. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I have learned to write for an
audience, be that a theatre of 2000 people, my 400 Instagram followers, or just
one person at the end of a text message. (I have learned that everything I
write is an opportunity to r<i>eally write</i>, to the dismay I’m sure of my
colleagues, my friends, and particularly anyone I’ve ever dated). </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I have learned there is nothing
scarier or more wonderful than people who make you want to be exactly who you
are, especially if who you are is a writer. That mentors are important. That
peers are essential to growth, both personal and professional.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I have learned that growth is power,
and that the older I get the more seriously I am taken.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><i>I have learned that I like being taken
seriously.</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I have learned, perhaps most
significantly, how important it is to always want to learn more.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">To recognise opportunities to improve,
even if they don’t fulfil you creatively. To recognise opportunities to create,
even if they don’t serve you financially. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">To acknowledge the moment when you <i>can’t
not do it </i>anymore.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">To wait for it, yes. And then to not
throw away my shot.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">(<i>The above is, word for word, what I sent to Faber Academy earlier this year when applying for a place on their flagship Writing a Novel course. Along with a writing sample from the novel, this is what made them offer me a place, and I start next week. I'm crowdfunding to pay as much of my fee as I can, because it's expensive and it's a method that has worked well for my peers. If you have any spare pennies, please consider donating them <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/63hzu0w" target="_blank">here</a>).</i></span></div>
<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-26159221278189200072018-03-04T03:59:00.001-08:002018-03-04T04:11:31.509-08:00Macarons.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2hy2x6kwUm5ivb54P7MpCSkqs3jfONsQzuxEnRhubjC2mM_z7CV7fi33zwGwwFjMKJ1yZIB7M4XrX8ngQUj9YegucOMDpTRTpdVd6PSjcTZ7b4bNkZA5YIxJCIBwv3b0diJ0SdV4PHoa9/s1600/brooke-lark-230642-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2hy2x6kwUm5ivb54P7MpCSkqs3jfONsQzuxEnRhubjC2mM_z7CV7fi33zwGwwFjMKJ1yZIB7M4XrX8ngQUj9YegucOMDpTRTpdVd6PSjcTZ7b4bNkZA5YIxJCIBwv3b0diJ0SdV4PHoa9/s320/brooke-lark-230642-unsplash.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Everyone says that Macarons are the hardest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They are harder than muffins, or sweet breads, or layered cakes with a hidden rainbow centre. Those just look impressive and are actually very simple once you know what you’re dealing with, which we were not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Which Macarons are not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They are harder than Baked Alaska, where the whole thing goes up in flames and emerges complete; harder than wedding cake when you’re no longer in love; harder than souffle and brulee and having to tell my friends they were right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Because you left, and Macarons are the hardest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I vowed that I would learn to bake them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The search for advice is a minefield of contradictions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Every recipe is different; every page footnoted with different tips for success, and all of it cited <i>non-negotiable</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Age the egg whites, before you try to coax them in to behaving the way you want. Make sure they’re mature enough. Give them as much of a chance as you can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ensure the bowl is perfectly clean; no history to taint the results. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Go easy on the liquid. Not too much food colouring, not too many tears.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I read recipe after recipe, and realise that some things, like learning how-not-to-love-you; like baking macarons, cannot be done in theory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They are going to take some practice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So I start.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Whip the eggs until they form stiff peaks; until your arms hurt; until they turn in to something else entirely, buoyed by the frenzy and growing in resilience to match the anger of the whisk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>Maybe whisk less angrily. Every recipe agrees that steaming in hard, all emotion and no logic, will ruin the batter straight off. It’s hard to come back from that).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>(Possible, in theory, but hard)</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Stop when they’re tough; when they’re solid; when the surface has the kind of gloss that from afar would make people envious, and if they don’t, remember that looks aren’t everything. You never can tell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>(Let the anger turn in to hope, at this point. You’re going to need that more).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>(Easier said than done, right?)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Add the almonds, add the flour, add enough sugar to tip the taste from powdery to sweet. Start with Chocolate, because it’s easy, and because everyone knows that chocolate is a remedy for heartbreak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Add the Cocoa. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Don’t text first. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mix.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Wait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am not neat; consistency does not come easy. I pipe the circles and they’re big and small and refuse to stay within the lines I drew, light pencil on baking parchment, a guideline rather than an assertion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m scared of pressing too hard, fearful it’ll be easier to see, then, when the mixture deviates from the plan. If I don’t make it clear, I can hardly be surprised when the macarons miss my cues. I can kid myself there was more I could have done; that maybe it wasn’t always going to end like this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They expand until they are all touching, a tangle of still-too-raw; of not-quite-strong-enough to stay in their own lane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s a mess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I remember it’s fine to like control and buy a mould.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Take two. Glossy egg whites, perfectly clean bowl. Mix gently but with intent, pipe with precision and trust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Take a photo now, when you still think they could be perfect. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Count these small wins. You’re going to need them, by the end. Remember that what comes later does not change <i>this. </i>Snap. No filter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let yourself smile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Lift the mould, and drop it from a height. It takes the air out of you, to fall like that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>Smoothes their edges. Teaches them how to rise</i>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let the circles dry until they stick when you touch them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Bake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I turn the heat up too high, impatient as I always am to go from cold to comfortable quickly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The door of the oven steams up and I lose sight completely of the thing I am trying to grow in there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I text that I miss you and pretend not to wait for a reply.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It doesn't come. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Every recipe seems to give a different incubation time; a different opinion about the point when the abstract turns in to something concrete; something definitive. It’s a matter of seconds; of knowing the difference between the too-soon minute and the one that’s gone-too-far.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I take them out too early. Tap the shell to check they’re solid and am surprised when my finger breaks through; feels the hollow space below. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Impossible to get right so quickly, is what I tell myself. Give it longer. More substance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s easy to look at the broken aftermath and be able to articulate so <i>obviously</i> what you would have done differently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>So do it differently</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Cocoa powder and sugar and ground almonds in to perfectly beaten egg whites. Raw batter on the back of the spoon, on your fingers, on your tongue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You get to try again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’ll work this time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>It does</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On a Thursday night in November, we eat Chocolate macarons for dinner and I wish you could see this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But Chocolate was feeling better after a vaguely crappy day; or something you do to keep your hands busy when your brain can’t be stilled. Chocolate helped the heartbreak, and now I’m feeling brave; like the soul-parts I forgot are creeping back in around the edges.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I make the classic mistake of inventing a recipe using things already in my cupboard; buoyed by success and sure everything I need is already there, somewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“You were <i>fine” </i>my best friend points out when the earl grey filling tastes more like tar than tea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Why didn’t you quit while you were ahead?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Because Chocolate was easy, and I am not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Build on the foundations, and realise it’s time to grow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Stop doing things just because they’re easy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Decide which flavour you actually <i>want</i>, and find a recipe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Buy Pistachios.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Try again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Grate the nuts. Try not to grate your fingers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>Sweat and tears are somewhat inevitable, and two out of three ain’t bad</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When your hands hurt, take a break.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Scroll instagram.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Wonder why any algorithm thinks I want to see you smiling on a pier, 27 minutes ago, grey skies. Allow a brief moment of pride for the way my heart hardly drops at all when I realise who took it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Turn up the speed on the whisk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>It’s encouragement, not anger</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Know exactly when to stop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Stop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This time I am brave enough to do what every recipe suggests; to turn the bowl upside down. Trust that it won’t fall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It doesn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>Then the next time it does, but I catch it before it goes too far, which is just as impressive</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I spend weeks refining, and learning, and adapting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Weeks of grazed knuckles and hollow shells and licking the spoon clean because even when they look defeated, they taste like heaven.</span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Weeks of pinpointing <i>exactly</i> when to open the door, to let the steam out before going back in. That's the secret to success, it seems. Taking off the pressure, every once in a while.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You send over Facebook that you <i>“hope I’m doing well”, </i>which is probably true but doesn’t make it feel any less contrived. You don’t get to hope anything for me, anymore. I don’t reply.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<i>Until 3 hours later, when, of course, I do)</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(To tell you that actually, I am).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I sprinkle the nuts in to the mixture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m betting on this batch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is expectation in every squeeze of the piping bag.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">The weight of it is too much for their delicate shells. They crack.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">But hey, that’s how the light gets in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">On a Saturday morning, a week or two away, and warm with tea and the bravado caffeine brings, I try again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">This time I barely look at the recipe. If I take a wrong turn this time, it’s all on me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perfectly matured egg whites on perfectly clean metal, whisked with a combination of experience and blind hope. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I flip the bowl with a deliberately unsteady hand, daring it to tremble. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Stillness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Turn it back slowly. Breathe out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mix in the parts that shift it from raw eggs in a silver bowl to something worth celebrating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sugar, almonds, vanilla.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Grate the nuts smaller. Know exactly when to move my hands.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sing loudly, in a way that only living alone allows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pistachios in, with a light hand and an “<i>I believe in you”</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I make them green, like your eyes weren’t. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And in a kitchen you have never known me in, on your 32nd birthday, I conquer the hardest flavour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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*</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "san francisco" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "ubuntu" , "roboto" , "noto" , "segoe ui" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: nowrap;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/GTMGG-xvxdU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Brooke Lark</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "san francisco" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "ubuntu" , "roboto" , "noto" , "segoe ui" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: nowrap;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/macarons?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Unsplash</a></span></div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-62197173773369179912017-12-29T04:58:00.001-08:002017-12-29T04:58:59.656-08:00The Gospel according to... (Or, the day I sang for Nelson Mandela).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeFmb4ff1eR9eaJQnaKt9dJWE2Fs64PLgUytJP2DQX_0ybR1dHU4FuGwovq2rHtph5q9BU6TwEyAYSNeiU-CuhHUyGk3lhNHhF1V8zdWQ-nUJLQkphbZTtl3cniPWSiCsgvD_gJx0Wczi/s1600/IMG_4645.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="750" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeFmb4ff1eR9eaJQnaKt9dJWE2Fs64PLgUytJP2DQX_0ybR1dHU4FuGwovq2rHtph5q9BU6TwEyAYSNeiU-CuhHUyGk3lhNHhF1V8zdWQ-nUJLQkphbZTtl3cniPWSiCsgvD_gJx0Wczi/s320/IMG_4645.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I don't remember, but I've been told the story enough times that I feel like I do: I am two years old, at my Grandparents' house, and after 27 years, Nelson Mandela is being released from prison. I'm standing up at the TV in that way that toddlers do; as much something to cling on to in order to remain upright as because it was an object of genuine interest (unlike washing machines which were the <i>coolest</i>), and repeating what I'm hearing around the room: "<i>Nelson! Nelson!"</i>.<br />
<br />
My parents kept the newspapers from the next morning well in to my childhood; they may still be in a bag under their stairs, although I vaguely recollect my Mum lending them to a well meaning teacher and them never quite making it home. I can't really remember how I told them when I found out; I can't really remember how I found out, but there must have been a day, some time about mid-way through the year I was 14, that I came home from school and told my parents I was going to sing for him. For Nelson Mandela.<br />
<br />
And then did.<br />
<br />
This is that story.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Gospel Choir was the one everyone wanted to be in; it was a religious school, and a lot of the girls genuinely believed in the God we were often singing about, but it was also, completely by coincidence being just a regular South East London secondary, a school of singers.<br />
<br />
Chamber Choir was the selective one; the one you had to be invited to. I remember vividly a parents evening, probably around the same time, and a music teacher with very little understanding of me trying to convince my parents that singing chamber pieces in languages I didn't understand was the only thing that could possibly enhance my music education. I resisted <i>hard</i> (I think I did it for about 2 weeks, in which they realised I could not sight read and wouldn't learn fast, wanted to sing loud and soulful rather than soft and slow, and had no aspirations to become a classical singer. Eventually they released me and I went back to a hobby I was far superior at: making the music teachers learn complicated Vanessa Carlton piano accompaniments in the space of a lunch time so I could sing them for no real reason at all).<br />
<br />
Gospel Choir, though, was somehow always different. It was music with <i>feeling</i>; music that could move you even when you didn't always believe what you were singing; music about friendship as often as worship, and a choir about <i>making noise</i>. It was supposed to be joyful. It was supposed to be loud. I joined because if I had a choice back then I would have been singing at all times, and it was just another way to do that. I stayed because standing on the makeshift wooden stage in my school's singular music classroom, feeling like you could fall through it at any second, and <i>singing, and singing, and singing</i> became my absolute favourite part of the week.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I did not, and do not, believe in God. I have my misgivings about organised religion generally, but would never detract from something that gives people comfort in a world where damn, we've gotta take it where we can. I believed, though, in the power of music, which when you put it like that sounds cheesy and reductive, but when you live it is as real as the keys I'm typing on. For one lunchtime a week, and extra afternoons where we were pulled from lessons as we convinced our teacher they were needed (<i>the week before a performance, just do a few dodgy notes on purpose. Works every single time</i>), it didn't matter who had fallen out with who; who was lying that they were pregnant; who actually was pregnant. We just sang. For teenagers, we took it very seriously. Maybe <i>because </i>we were teenagers, we took it very seriously. And we were good.<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Maybe <i>really</i> good, actually).</span><br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
He was coming to open a new wing of Southwark Cathedral. We sang there all the time. (Again, despite not being at all religious, I <i>loved</i> the Cathedral. I went in there last week to do my makeup in the secret toilets you'd only know about if you <i>knew</i> about. It's still sort of magic). But yeah, we were Cathedral regulars, and I suppose as a nod to their genuinely wonderful work with our community, the powers that be had invited us to welcome him. It was a Saturday, definitely, but I think I can speak for us all when I say there was no hesitation at all in putting on our uniforms and gathering outside the school gates early in the morning. When we started Year 7, every girl in the school was given a red Rose pin, to be taken out and attached to our shirts on special occasions (they were massive and garish and everyone hated them. I would definitely wear it now). Nobody could ever find theirs (<i>probably 'cause we stuffed them in rarely opened drawers on purpose</i>); everyone's miraculously turned up that day. I think we took a coach, despite the fact that it was in walking distance. They made us get there <i>hours</i> early.<br />
<br />
Our parents were in a contained viewing area. Everyone else was peeking through gates and railings. My Grandad held my Nan up a lamppost so she could see. I didn't witness it, but still I see it every time I walk past. My Mum and Dad had a disposable camera; every now and then I open random drawers in their house and a photo of the side of my face; the side of the Cathedral flutters out.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
We sang the South African National Anthem. It's been 14 years. I still remember most of the words.<br />
<br />
We sang Children of the Future, a song a school in Wales had commissioned and we shamelessly stole because the internet was quite new and how would anyone all the way in Wales find out?! We pedalled that one out <i>all the time</i>. To be fair it's a tune. (I can't find any trace of it online, which is a shame. That one was our anthem).<br />
<br />
(<i>We weren't part of the actual inside-the-cathedral service, but it was beamed out to us on speakers. The bishop forgot to turn his mic off when he was singing the hymns. That was jokes. Isn't it funny, the things you remember?</i>)<br />
<br />
He (Nelson Mandela, not the Bishop) was human and funny and got the pages of his speech in the wrong order; made a joke, barely missed a beat. He was tall, I think, but maybe I was just little and in awe of his presence. When I remember him, though, I remember him tall.<br />
<br />
We sang <i>loud</i>. We didn't have microphones. We didn't need them.<br />
<br />
If it was always part of the plan that we would meet him, nobody had told us. We didn't realise until it was happening.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I still don't believe in God.<br />
<br />
We filed past, one at a time. Watched our friends go before us like it was <i>no big deal</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>We knew it was a big deal. </i><br />
<br />
He held out his hand, or I mine, I can't remember.<br />
<br />
We shook.<br />
<br />
My parents' disposable camera snapped.<br />
<br />
My Nan could not have seen that moment, but she says she did.<br />
<br />
I still don't believe in God, but I imagine it feels something like that.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Many years afterwards, my Dad's work took him to South Africa. He talks often about how he met people who knew Mandela personally, and visited the places he had been (<i>also something about dancing, but that one needs his visual demonstration. Ask him, if you ever meet</i>). He always ends with "<i>And you met him..."</i>.<br />
<br />
Yeah. I did. Because of the thing I loved to do most in the world, I got to get up on a Saturday morning, and sing at a beautiful cathedral with loads of my friends for an honest-to-god hero. I just had a moment where I was like <i>imagine if I'd made it all up? '</i>Cause how on earth did we get to do that? Just because we loved to sing?<br />
<br />
How stupid must we be, to grow up and stop making time for the things that make us that happy? Really, is there anything more important than finding your gospel, be it God, or singing, or writing about it 14 years removed, and doing that?<br />
<br />
Nah. Probably not.Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-73039574242397835022017-12-10T12:43:00.000-08:002017-12-10T13:06:21.185-08:00The World Was Wide Enough: How Hamilton expanded the realm of possibility.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf3uEwNEWlkrBYhXKy2RinbxkvQlArHXrH6YNTwn8lLr34h0KDlT5xEyPHM0PBS1iFVOpmcthKSDmkD7h8GDdrO6XhfPi3mdsf2PJkUeXP4BjBOM2Y7DG52oT9oNM-dMRc0KR7TonvBoZo/s1600/IMG_4405.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf3uEwNEWlkrBYhXKy2RinbxkvQlArHXrH6YNTwn8lLr34h0KDlT5xEyPHM0PBS1iFVOpmcthKSDmkD7h8GDdrO6XhfPi3mdsf2PJkUeXP4BjBOM2Y7DG52oT9oNM-dMRc0KR7TonvBoZo/s320/IMG_4405.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
I heard it for the first time in a house that was not mine. The same house where I watched Hedwig for the first time, and discovered Diptyque candles, and wrote most of the best bits of a show I'm proud of. I think it was October but I might be wrong. I could google it, I know, but in my head it was October and the truth and the facts are sometimes different things. <br />
<br />
I first heard Hamilton in a house that was not mine, Octobers ago.<br />
<br />
I saw it for the first time on the last day of September, a year later in a city I do not live in. I'd last been to bed on the other side of the world, and was plane tired. Bone and mind tired. I was wearing a gold velvet dress almost the same colour as the artwork.<br />
<br />
A perfectly timed act of kindness from a good friend meant that ten days ago, an invitation to the final dress rehearsal of the London run popped in to my inbox. Five days ago I saw it on home turf. I could have walked there from my office, it was that close. I didn't, but I could have.<br />
<br />
You only have to open Twitter to see what early audiences think. In a few weeks, you will read reviews from people who's job it is to write reviews. I don't need to add to that. I agree with what they will all say; for so many reasons it was one of the most special evenings I've ever spent in a theatre.<br />
<br />
And do you know what else? There are far more interesting things about Hamilton than what I, sitting in the Victoria Palace on Tuesday night, thought of it as a piece.<br />
<br />
So this is not a review.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Hamilton changed the narrative for a lot of people in theatre (maybe out of theatre, too), and I do not get to speak for most of them. One thing I think I am qualified to talk about, though? How important this wondrous show is for emerging artists. There are things we had never even considered that we know now are possible. Because of Hamilton. Because of Lin-Manuel Miranda.<br />
<br />
(<span style="font-size: x-small;">I could also talk about the Angelica/Hamilton relationship for a long time and in great detail, but won't. That's for another time</span>).<br />
<br />
I'll begin with a story. Or part of a story, at least. Actually it's just a line, presented to me as a fact by an incredibly successful composer.<br />
<br />
"<i>You can't do that in musicals"</i>.<br />
<br />
It was my second ever show. First commission. I can't remember what it was that I was trying to do, but I believed him. Wouldn't you?<br />
<br />
I was 26 years old, the youngest on the creative team by a very long way and flitting <i>constantly</i> between knowing I was good enough to be there and worrying that maybe I was not. I had read an interview with Lin-Manuel where he said (and I remember it word for word, I think) "<i>It was never in my soul and bones to write a musical about cheerleading"</i>, but he knew he'd learn so much from the team that he said yes. I carried that with me for a long time. It made a lot of things I was feeling make sense. This show was not in my soul and bones. It maybe had been, once, but things can happen to erase that, and they did. It was not in my soul and bones but the team? I would learn <i>so much</i>. I was there to absorb their knowledge, to take what they had to offer and give back the things I knew, a generation and half a world away, that they did not.<br />
<br />
And what they taught me, that particular day?<br />
<br />
<i>You can't do that</i>.<br />
<br />
So I didn't.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
For the uninitiated, it's a hip-hop inspired musical about the founding fathers of America. It opens with a rap number. Cabinet meetings are rap battles. It's contemporary dance in period costumes.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(In the In The Heights box office, we used to describe it to slightly older customers as "spoken word", scared of saying rap, I think. Then we realised they already knew what it was. They were as <i>here for it</i> as we were)</span>.<br />
<br />
It was one of the only shows I have ever heard that made me think <i>I did not know musicals could be that</i>. And when you realise that; realise that after 11 years working in theatre and a lifetime worshipping it, you can still be surprised, the realm of possibility expands a bit.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I saw In The Heights on Broadway, and at Southwark. By the time it came to Kings Cross I was part of the Box Office team. By the time it left, I was in charge of the Box Office. A passion for the project you're selling allows you to give it all you've got, and I saw something in Lin-Manuel's work that made me want to step up my game in my own, both writing and in the things I did to fund the writing. It was one of the proudest and most joyful periods of my career (<i>of my life)</i>. We played Hamilton often; told customers wearing Broadway merch how jealous we were that they beat us there.<br />
<br />
At the same time (<i>between all the bleeding and fighting, luckily metaphorical)</i>, I was writing. Writing and writing and writing and all the while listening to Hamilton fall in love with Angelica, and try to reconcile that with the reality of his life; listening to him fall in love with Eliza, and try to reconcile that with the reality of his career; listening to him, between his own bleeding and fighting, reading and writing and writing and writing his way out.<br />
<br />
(<span style="font-size: x-small;">The day Hamilton opened on Broadway, Lin-Manuel posted a picture. Himself in costume as Hamilton, sitting at a writing desk, the caption <i>I wrote my way out. I looked up and the town had it's eyes on me</i>. I think about it dearly, and often. It gives me goosebumps on goosebumps every time).</span><br />
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The more I listened, it seemed, the more I was told that the things I was trying to do in my own work were <i>unrealistic, </i>or <i>not audience friendly enough</i> or, often, <i>too complicated. </i>By then I was 27, almost two years in to a project that was killing my creativity and compromising my integrity in a way that I suspected wasn't worth it, but that I had no experience to compare to. I listened to Lin on the soundtrack, <i>he looked at me like I was stupid - I'm not stupid</i>, and learned that perfect phrasing is just as effective as what you're saying, sometimes. I walked to the highest point in Greenwich with my headphones in, and looked out over London, and thought <i>you don't have to be sitting at a desk to be writing. </i>That was the same weekend I got my mouth around <i>I am inimitable, I am an original</i>. It was the same month I sat in bed on a Thursday morning, watched a commencement speech that Lin had given at a university where he talked about never compromising on integrity, and thought for the first time <i>I don't know if I can do this anymore</i>.<br />
<br />
I was listening to Hamilton the morning I decided I could not. I don't wear my hair the way I did back then, because it reminds me. I sometimes put on the cape I had on that day and try to make <i>this looks cute</i> a more prevalent thought than <i>remember when</i>. I still listen to the album all the time.<br />
<br />
It's the overriding thing.<br />
<br />
It is better than the memories it sticks to.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Hamilton is unrealistic, as a concept. A hip-hop musical with a cast comprised predominantly of people of colour, about the founding fathers? What?<br />
<br />
On paper, it is not audience friendly. See above, basically.<br />
<br />
It is complicated as hell.<br />
<br />
All the things I was told were fundamentally wrong about my work were the things that, combined with a magic beyond articulation, made Hamilton gross more in a single week than any other musical in Broadway history; receive more Tony nominations than anything that had come before.<br />
<br />
The show asks the question <i>Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It made me wonder <i>who gets to decide mine?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
*<br />
<br />
What is it about? The first Treasury secretary of the United States of America. His ambition, his complicated personal life, the incredible women who fought with and for him.<br />
<br />
What is it about, <i>really</i>?<br />
<br />
It is about reclaiming stories, and finding your place in them. It is about saying <i>I wasn't there, but this is relevant to me. This is my history; my legacy, too. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I wasn't there, but I am now.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It is about expanding limits. It is about saying <i>How can you tell me musical theatre can't be this, when it is? Someone has created it, and that makes it possible for the rest of us, too. He proved we can. We don't get to claim impossibility anymore. Neither does anyone else on our behalf. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It's about being confident enough in your ideas. It's about being confident enough in your <i>confidence</i>.<br />
<br />
Knowing that your artistic integrity is the <i>most important</i> thing. Learning that you <i>can not be compromised.</i><br />
<br />
There's a line, in that unmeasurably wonderful open letter that Emma Rice wrote to her successor, that has stuck with me; that pretty much summarises the things I felt, October, not my house, listening to Eliza put herself back in the narrative.<br />
<br />
"<i>Nothing is worth giving away my artistic freedom for. It has been too hard fought for"</i>.<br />
<br />
I reached the end, that first time around Alexander's story, and opened a new word document. Draft 14 became Version 2, Draft 1.<br />
<br />
*<br />
That composer, from the story (<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">half story. line</span></i>) I told before? I think often about what I'll say when I see him again. It changes depending entirely on my mood, but it's always, to paraphrase, something along the lines of <i>trying to limit me was the biggest mistake you could have made for your show. Just so you know</i>.<br />
<br />
The one thing I learned, from working with those people who tried to reduce me? That I never want to do it again. That I don't have to.<br />
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And the next time someone tells me <i>You can't do that in musicals?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I have proof, whatever it is, that you can.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I have quoted this show in love letters (well, love <i>cards</i>). I have referenced it in countless blog posts, and even more on social media, and once in a job interview. I have been moved to tears by it in two cities. I have never loved it more than in October, in a house that was not mine.<br />
<br />
'Cause on the morning of a writing day, in pyjamas, on someone else's sofa, I saw a tweet saying that Hamilton had dropped it's soundtrack days before anyone was expecting it, and I walked around the house, and when that began to feel too small around the streets surrounding it, and listened to the whole thing.<br />
<br />
And suddenly, the world was wide enough.Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-48493806845249690882017-11-15T00:42:00.000-08:002017-11-15T00:45:12.717-08:00#LoveTheatreDay: My favourite theatrical moments.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-p6FpbtU6xL37bpQysc3QM_yLmP4iQ8T2r9cz_KwEZLbR6qSr1tDVZibAPMqbxxqwo3bjd4E9_6HHgMBmAsudFHlUPYMjsSlxpEVBoRv8kI87JEHXd4Hv8uV7WGtE_uVFD1UaJQmuHUC/s1600/12341417_502614916181_1356833366896188815_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-p6FpbtU6xL37bpQysc3QM_yLmP4iQ8T2r9cz_KwEZLbR6qSr1tDVZibAPMqbxxqwo3bjd4E9_6HHgMBmAsudFHlUPYMjsSlxpEVBoRv8kI87JEHXd4Hv8uV7WGtE_uVFD1UaJQmuHUC/s320/12341417_502614916181_1356833366896188815_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
Shall we talk about theatre, then?<br />
<br />
Lately I haven't done a lot of that on the internet. The reason being I'm a big believer in that Mum-favourite "<i>If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything", </i>and for a little while I didn't have anything nice to say. In 2016 I had a theatre day-job that made me happier than I'd ever been, and I was writing musicals with a legend. As 2017 rolled in, I lost both in very quick succession. I was not, as you'd imagine, theatre's biggest fan for a while. It absolutely ruined me, and I absolutely wasn't talking about it.<br />
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It crept back in, though. It always does, doesn't it? I wrote a play, and learned in doing so that I still want to write musicals one day, jumped back in to the day-job-field I fell unexpectedly in love with, and continued to make myself feel better by sitting in a large building, in a central part of town, in a dark room listening to songs as part of a play (I stole that line from Ed Kleban. I don't think he'd mind).<br />
<br />
The obvious truth is, I love it even when I say I don't. Theatre is hard, and frustrating, and kind of soul-destroying when you're in it, and vital, and world-expanding, and completely brilliant. I've spent 11 years now wrapped in it's slightly too tight hug, ushering, serving drinks, producing, selling tickets, and writing (also did a little bit of social media, a little bit of marketing, facilitated a couple of workshops and spent far too much time flyering). I toy often with the idea of a change of scene (<i>remember that time - it was last week - that I was very seriously going to apply for a job at the National Crime Agency?</i>) but usually come back pretty quickly to the reality that the reason it sometimes drives me so crazy, and leaves me jaded and sad and stressed out at moments is that when it's good? Oh, there's nothing in the world like it.<br />
<br />
So this #LoveTheatreDay, I want to focus on the good. Not just <i>my</i> good, although there are inevitably a few professional best bits listed below, but the good-in-general. The times that make me carry on. The five theatrical <i>moments of my life</i>, as they've been so far. Let's have a bet if I manage to keep it to five. I predict the chances are slim.<br />
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<b>1. Standing in the wings at the Royal Albert Hall</b><br />
Listening to Idina Menzel sound check Heaven Help my Heart. It had been ten months of the hardest and most rewarding work I had ever known, and somehow, which is so rare on a show day, I had found a moment to just... <i>stop</i>. Marvin Hamlisch stood on his podium, or maybe next to it, I can't remember over half a decade away from this moment. It was quiet. And then Idina, small and gorgeous and <i>finally</i> here after endless weeks of logistics and planning... began to sing. And I remember thinking <i>Oh God... we actually did it</i>. So much had happened up until that point. So much was still going to. It had not been easy, and it was not going to be easy. But right there, in that brief moment in the middle of a huge undertaking? It seemed simple. Reduced to the <i>whole point</i> of it all, for just a few minutes. Just a woman singing the most beautiful song to an empty auditorium, while Marvin Hamlisch conducted, and, unseen, I watched.<br />
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(Very very special mention to a year later - Apollo Theatre, Autumn. There was a space where Marvin should have been, both on the stage and in the universe. I wasn't in tech; hadn't looked at the set list either. I was on the other side of town, producing another show, and came out to a text message from the depths of the Apollo stalls: "<i>She's doing A Chorus Line</i>. <i>You're going to lose it"</i>. It worked out somehow that I didn't get to see that particular part of the show 'til the first preview. In the week's worth of shows that followed, there wasn't a single time I watched that song without crying).<br />
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<b>2. Watching Darren play Hedwig.</b><br />
I scheduled meetings in New York around this one. Some stuff had happened that meant Darren Criss and I were on each other's professional radars (and by <i>some stuff</i> I mean one night in Paris we sang Aladdin and Les Mis in a hotel until 4am. That was fun) and I was <i>desperate</i> to see him play a part that was so far outside the realm of what I'd seen him do before. So I flew over to talk about that musical I was writing, and on a Saturday night off, I put on a very tiny sequinned dress (I thought Hedwig would approve) and went on down to the Belasco. Let's start at the end: my body was giving him a standing ovation before my brain caught up. (It actually sort of hurt). I knew already that the man was generous-of-spirit, so why I was surprised by the generosity of his performance I have no idea, but he was <i>fearless. </i>He gave everything away. He looked <i>beautiful</i>. Producers, <i>please</i>. You know what I'm asking, right? It was one of the most abundant single performances I've ever seen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>3. The moment in Waitress where she gives him the "T<i>hanks for taking me to the moon moon-pie"</i>.</b><br />
Most of Waitress, really, but that bit especially, 'cause it's funny, and clever, and reveals the most incredible strength of character. I've told this before, but when we left the theatre that October Sunday afternoon my friend Chrissie said "<i>Bits of that were just you, and bits of that were just me, weren't they?" </i>and yeah. <i>Exactly</i>. I'm still proud that Broadway's first all female creative team made the best musical I saw last year, and <i>that</i> moment? Where she does the exact right thing even though she <i>really</i> doesn't want to, with her cleverly named pie and her perfectly chosen words? I wished that was one of the bits that were <i>just me. </i>(LOL it wasn't, though. I'm trying very hard not to ruin the plot here, but I... could not have). (<i>Also Jessie Mueller, standing stage left, voice cracking with a bit of emotion singing She Used to be Mine? I will not forget that).</i><br />
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<b>4. Watching Lin-Manuel Miranda watch In The Heights.</b><br />
Actually I was sitting the row in front of him, so <i>watching</i> isn't accurate, but let's go with it. I say it often and I think people think I'm joking: Ticketing In The Heights was one of the absolute joys of my career (and life). That whole day was special, and to share it with with two of my pals who had been there through <i>all </i>the hard bits of trying to run a ticketing operation from a hut in the middle of a main road (if I sound disparaging it's cause I'm trying to deny the fact that not a single day passes where I don't miss it) made it all the sweeter. When it comes to In The Heights, even after all this time I've never worked out which parts are Lin-Manuel and which are Quiara ('<i>cause a book writer doesn't just write the script, y'know?)</i> but listening to him laugh at jokes I assume were hers? I was <i>jealous. </i>Imagine, a collaborator so heartily supportive of you, and everything you do? It was the most inspiring thing. Inspiring also to watch people who had become friends over the year in our Kings Cross home perform the show they loved for the man who had created it (<i>if you were there, I guarantee you remember Josie Benson almost literally tearing the roof off the Kings Cross Theatre. Was there a mid-show standing ovation or am I making that up?)</i>. I could talk forever about all the wonderful things that happened because In The Heights came to town, but I won't. I'll reduce it to a second that encapsulated all of it; sitting in our auditorium, one of our heroes behind us, laughing at his own show, and us, thinking <i>how lucky we are</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Surprise! We're going for 8! Who would've guessed?</i><br />
<br />
<i>(Me. I knew as soon as I got to 3).</i><br />
<br />
<b>5. The first broadway show I saw was RENT.</b><br />
With Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. It was sort of an accident actually (I say that as if we hadn't crossed the ocean at least in part for that reason). We didn't think it would be on TKTS, and had planned to hit up the Nederlander Box Office the next day. Our first show, though, would be whatever we could find on the booth, back when it was in it's temporary home and the queue went underneath the Marriott Marquis (remember that?). When we reached the front and saw they were offering RENT, there was not even a question. It felt frantic. It felt like they were the last few tickets, but I don't think they were. I have seen it in far better shape since (<i>closing cast, just before the surprise extension</i>), but something about that one will stick. Something about sitting in the auditorium where all those stories we'd heard had happened, in a city that was still new enough to me to be overwhelming, watching two of the original cast of the show that made me fall in love with theatre. I'm realising right now, a decade later, that so many of the experiences on this list (and in my life) were born of that moment, where I sat in a Broadway theatre thinking maybe this was something I could <i>really</i> fall in love with, and was proved unequivocally right.<br />
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<b>6. White masks in mirrors</b><br />
Sleep No More, the first time. I've learned a little bit more about White Mask Theory (<i>well, that's a thing I just made up</i>) in the years since I first visited The McKittrick, and know now that there's a definite relationship between the mental state of the character and whether they can see the crowd of creeps following (literally) their every move, but I didn't then. Back then, after three hours of chasing Macbeth around a warehouse-turned-hotel, the crowd of onlookers skidded to a halt as the subject of our attention stopped in front of a mirror. He looked in to the glass, and straightened his tie. Around him, surrounding him on every side, were white masks, making his unmasked face in the middle that much more pronounced. It felt, I suppose, like we were watching over him, protecting and observing him on this final part of his journey. We all knew how Macbeth ended. We all knew it was close. He straightened his tie, and I was <i>gone</i>. Here you go, Punchdrunk. Here's my heart. You can have it.<br />
<br />
<b>7. Yerma</b><br />
Honestly, all of it. The first scene change, when the parameters of possibility changed <i>entirely</i>. Every considered move Billie Piper made. The light. The lack of light. The brilliant subtitles. The bit I'm choosing, though? That moment where (and I'm paraphrasing here), John tells her they will be alright, if she'll just stop writing about it, and she replies "<i>I can't do that"</i>. Oh, God. Everything about those four words (their delivery, their placement, their <i>meaning</i>) was just absolutely perfect.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>8. Is it strange that one of my top ten theatrical moments happened in an airport?</b><br />
It was early, and I'd treated myself to lounge access on the logic that you only get to fly to New York to see your first show open once. I'd been to bed and woken up; Gianni hadn't gone to sleep yet. In an armchair, eating a Sausage sandwich, drinking a latte, I checked in to let him know I was on my way and make a plan for when I landed, not expecting him to pick it up until New-York-Morning. It was about 4 hours after the full version of The 8th Fold had it's first ever public performance.<br />
"<i>How was it?" </i>I asked, and his reply was immediate.<br />
"<i>Standing ovation"</i>.<br />
I switched from coffee to Gin.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-8185900288168803842017-11-12T03:49:00.001-08:002017-11-12T04:08:15.692-08:00What happens when a fangirl grows up (Or the bits you get to keep).<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">"<i>How can you say young girls don't get it? They're our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans — they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like you, and they tell you. Which is </i><b><i>sick</i></b>." - Harry Styles</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">Confession time: I was a teenage fangirl (<i>You're all like "Mate, we know. That's not a confession)</i>. Through loving a band (they were called V. If you've heard of them you're <i>definitely</i> of a certain time) I met some of my best friends, saw places I otherwise wouldn't have (Bradford, Birmingham, Swindon... all the classics), and learned that there was <i>so much more</i> available to me than drinking in Peckham parks and being loudly raging when the frankly terrifying boys from the school next door shouted <i>oi</i> at you as you walked past. (It was a real problem. Eventually our school had to get it's own London bus so they couldn't get us).</span></div>
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I had posters of Gareth Gates covering not only every wall but most of the ceiling too (I have no idea how I coped, thriving as I do on spaces that are <i>light</i>. I must have loved him <i>that much). </i>I wore a red ribbon on my wrist to concerts and TV recordings, the internationally recognised symbol (<i>no but literally)</i> of Gareth devotees everywhere, and used to dance to Westlife in my tiny bedroom, the track skipping if I moved too vigorously and jogged the CD player. It was <i>part of me</i>. The making of, in some ways. </span></div>
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But what happens when a fangirl grows up? Which parts stick? Does it change you forever, or do you look at the Harry Styles fans in the front row and think they're losers? (Spoiler alert, no you don't).</span></div>
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That world could not feel further away to me now, almost 15 years on from the height of the boyband thing, but there are definitely parts of me that exist because I spent my teenage years using my fake ID to get in to Top of the Pops rather than Wetherspoons. These are some.</span></div>
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<b><i>You basically become a qualified detective.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">The reason I can find out what your Tinder date does for a living, how long his last relationship was and who with, and what he did last night with just five minutes and a first name? <i>All</i> of that was born of this time. (Alright maybe not all. Maybe some of it comes from the alternative life that's definitely within me where I was a criminal lawyer. Anyway). Teenage fangirls <i>want to know things</i>. Be that who their idol is dating or just where they'll be tomorrow night, the tips and tricks you pick up stay with you, I've found. The fangirls of today have it easier; they can analyse an Insta story, identify the tv studio, and be there in an hour, I'm sure. In our day it was a lot more picking up of subtle hints, teasing stories out of someone who knew someone, and pooling resources with the rest of the teen detectives to make sure everyone got their selfie. Or just going to CD:UK all the time and hoping for the best. Life skills, I'm sure you'll agree. </span></div>
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<b><i>It instills a fearlessness in you.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">So what, you were banned from Riverside Studios for trying to leave in the middle of a recording (<i>it got well boring after whoever you'd come to see had performed</i>) and had written your (<i>obviously fake</i>) name in their book so they knew not to give you tickets ever again. That never stopped any of us from re-joining the queue the next week in the hope our sins had been forgotten, which they almost always had. The lesson? You keep on showing up. Do what you need to, as long as it isn't hurting anyone, and trust that if you do it with enough confidence, everyone will assume you belong there. (See also the time we fit 8 people in to about 4 seats at Wembley Arena just by dancing enough that they couldn't work out who was sitting where). </span></div>
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<b><i>It makes you honest.</i></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">As Harry Styles says above, if a teenage girl likes you, she tells you. That never really left me. I live louder because in my teens that's how everyone I knew lived. We had, as one of the Boybanders put it to me <i>many</i> years later, a lot of feelings, and we weren't scared to express them at all. I like to think I've reigned it in ever so slightly in the 15 years since, but I'm still not afraid of putting my love out there, and honestly, I think so many of the best things in my life have come to me because of that. (I owe a lot of my writing style to that principal too, I'm sure). </span></div>
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<b><i>Got a problem? I'll solve it.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-kerning: none;">It's occurred to me only in this moment that I think you need a certain intelligence to be a fangirl in the way that we were; a sharpness they don't teach you in school. Whether that grows from the hours outside the BBC in the cold or is the thing that makes you think spending Friday night having a laugh on a pavement in White City is a good idea in the first place I'm not quite sure, but I definitely think it's a gift. You learn to think on your feet ("<i>I'm just opening this door to see if I can get phone signal, definitely not to let loads of my friends in the side</i>"), change plans, direction, and sometimes even city at the drop of a hat, and always have a chewing gum handy (<i>to stick backstage wristbands back together when passing them off between each other. It's disgusting, I know</i>). The creative solutions we came up with using only text messages and a £2 travel card were, in retrospect, pretty impressive. </span></div>
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<b><i>The world expands.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The fangirl years were, really, the first time I was taken out of my immediate circle. It was like someone had dropped water on my friendship group, and like paint on paper it expanded quickly and vastly. My best friends suddenly lived all over London (eventually all over the country) rather than in the square mile around my school, and it felt for the first time like getting to <i>choose</i> your people. It wasn't circumstantial anymore. We were (we are) all so different, but a common love overrides that when you're 15, doesn't it, and then you realise that different is <i>fine</i>; that different is the <i>best thing</i>. These friendships weren't based on mutual-love-of-a-thing for long; it quickly became about mutual love of each other. Even the people you barely knew back then; the ones you just saw around sometimes; added on Facebook; hardly ever spoke to, become part of the story, and the legacy. We all look out for each other, still. They're the only ones who <i>really</i> get it, and that's a specific kind of magic. A knowingness you can't fake. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;">Those teenagers became 20-somethings who were first to know about all my firsts. The girls with an abundance of love to give became women, and that abundance didn’t diminish, and now we give it to each other’s families too, and each other’s children, and still (always) each other. They’ll be at my wedding. Some of them will be <i>in</i> my wedding. </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">The best bit you get to keep, so long after it all ends, is the people. </span></span></div>
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So would I do any of it again? Hell no. Am I a little bit jealous of the Harry Styles fans, living out their glory days in the front row? Surprisingly not. </span></div>
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Was it formative, though? And important? And worth it? Well, yeah. Duh. Obviously. </span></div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-91915085056198629432017-11-11T03:05:00.000-08:002017-11-11T03:10:44.012-08:00In praise of slowing down (Or why there is more to life than hustling all the time).<div>
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In my early 20s, I lived a pretty busy life. I was usually doing 2 jobs at a time, producing all day then running from the office to the theatre to sell programmes and direct people to their seats until 10pm. Home by 11.15, maybe after a drink to break the airlock of work; become a person again. Up again at 8, and back to the office.</div>
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Even when I graduated to only doing one job at a time, it didn't bring much respite. Longer hours at the office, then maybe a show (one of ours or someone else's). A little bit of travel: I remember one particular night my sister texting me "<i>are you upstairs?"</i> and me replying "<i>No I'm in Edinburgh". </i></div>
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If I sound in any way ungrateful, that couldn't be further from the truth. I was exhausted and happy; spending my time doing what I loved more than anything. The truth is though, in the theatre industry at that particular time, it felt <i>necessary</i>. Everyone was living like that, surely? It must be the only way to keep on top of it all; working harder, achieving more in less time... wasn't that the most important thing?</div>
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I don't know what changed. I can't even <i>quite</i> work out when, although the time I had bronchitis and spent 2 weeks saying I'd go to the doctors once the show was over was probably a low point, but somewhere in the past few years almost all of my priorities shifted. And I realised that's <i>more</i> than alright.</div>
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I have a bit of a reputation, these days, for being a self-proclaimed old lady. I <i>love</i> going home at the end of the day, adore a Saturday night in, and find a least as much pleasure in cooking with a podcast in my ears as I do hanging out in a cool bar. I'm definitely not resistant to a chilled life (sometimes).</div>
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I still love being busy, though. Whether that's a hangover from jobs past or ingrained in my bones I'm not quite sure, but I'm never happier than when I'm using my brain to make things happen; never more impressive (to myself) than when posed with a problem that I can come up with a creative solution for, never more content that when I can crawl in to bed feeling like it has been a day well spent. </div>
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So where is the balance? How do we make sure we're happy in the <i>work hard</i> moments, happy in the <i>play hard, </i>happy in the <i>go home by 8pm and watch a documentary? </i>It's important, I think, to check in every now and then with the things that make you feel most like you. There's this mentality, especially for creative women it seems, that we have to always be hustling (remember the other day when I said I wasn't saying that anymore?). The truth is, though, you'll be <i>crap</i> at the hustle if your edges are frayed; you haven't slept enough or done anything <i>just for you</i> in a while. You'll wake up one day and ask yourself <i>is that all there is? </i>Well no, actually. </div>
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There is waking up late, or at least later. Making breakfast, taking it back to bed and eating it under the covers with a book. Stretching, reading Twitter, kidding yourself that you'll get up in a minute and go to the gym. Actually getting up and going to the gym. I can't tell you how excited I was when I realised I have time to go food shopping today.<br />
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I am the best at writing when I feel rested. Honestly, I look my best when I've spent the night before bingeing Gossip Girl, 'cause it makes me want to get up and do my hair. I'm never nicer company than the morning after one of those amazing sleeps where you wake up with a lazy smile, a little bit before your alarm. Someone told me once "<i>You're never hotter than when you're doing what you're brilliant at"</i> (I was wearing pretty huge heels and a fitted leather blazer at the time too though, which I'm sure helped, and what I was doing was shouting at a stage door queue that I wasn't bringing Idina out if they didn't stand against the wall, so not using <i>all</i> of my talent, tbh) and at the time I completely agreed. I rarely feel better in my skin than when I'm doing what I love and doing it well. The only way I can do that, though, I realise now? Knowing there is more to life. Not replying to emails at 4am anymore. Not replying to emails at 8pm anymore. Taking actual days off. Picking your battles, and feeling alright with the fact that if you don't do it, someone else might get there first. Let them. The world is wide enough.<br />
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The older I get, the more I feel I know myself, and the more weight I put on the things that make <i>me</i> happy rather than the things I think <i>the world</i> expects me to do. I think this has only made people take me more seriously: it makes you look like you know what you're doing even when you don't. It's impossible to have a handle on everything, but as long as you keep just doing you, you'll be alright. Have a handle on one thing. Let that be your own needs, and let that be enough.<br />
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The rest will come.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #f2f2f2; color: #111111; font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "san francisco" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "ubuntu" , "roboto" , "noto" , "segoe ui" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/y7rGTFyOzxc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; transition: color 0.2s ease-in-out, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Giulia Bertelli</a><span style="background-color: #f2f2f2; color: #111111; font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "san francisco" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "ubuntu" , "roboto" , "noto" , "segoe ui" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; transition: color 0.2s ease-in-out, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Unsplash</a></div>
Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-78877307535238157192017-11-05T07:34:00.000-08:002017-11-05T07:35:14.306-08:00A Gift (Letter to a Fangirl)<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dear you</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When you are nineteen, you will meet a boy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why am I telling you this?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Because life, despite all of its intricacies and nuances, is just a series of stories, and this is one of yours. Years later, probably, you’ll look back and think that you wish you had known memories were being made.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If you had known, you may think, you would have taken more photographs, laughed more, loved a little harder.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No. You could not have loved any harder.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But that’s how it began, and so that is how this begins.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When you are nineteen, you will meet a boy, and clichés are horrible, I know, but your life will change.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The boy you’ll meet will play guitar. He’ll write songs that could be about you, and sing them to sold out crowds of girls who feel the same. Mention his name to anybody and they’ll have a vague idea of who you mean.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“You’re just a fan”, they’ll say, and maybe you’ll laugh, because <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">just</em> a fan is such a contradiction. Nobody is <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">just</em> a fan. Everybody has their story, and they all weave together to create <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">his</em> story. It wouldn’t be the same without you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ll meet him on a Thursday, in the summer. It wont be an accident, as such, but when you look back, you won’t remember ever meaning for it to happen. It was serendipity, sort of. Being in the same place, at the same time, and recognizing an energy in him that made you think “oh”. Just that. Just….oh. (Or maybe, for a second, it was just because he was pretty. You’ll never be <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">quite</em> certain).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And then you’ll get to know him, and he’ll lose that sheen of perfection, and become just someone-you-know. Someone who loves laughing, and music that is happy even if it isn’t good, and stories about people, and all the other things you never even register as important until they are what connects you to someone else, and then suddenly they are your most significant parts. When you share a favourite book, or are both in love with a place, you’ll be so thankful for these tiny-life-things, because it just gives you one more reason to talk to him. That is what it becomes about, in a way. Reasons to spend time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There have been times before, of course, when you’ve wanted to know every single part of a person, but this time, you want to sit and talk with him until he learns every part of you, too. You want him to know all the things you share, and the bits you don’t, incase you teach him something new in those carefully composed sentences. In case maybe a part of him can exist just because you created it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One day, he’ll sing a line from a song, and you’ll ask him who it’s by and fall in love. That’ll happen all the time. You’ll discover whole new worlds, just because he loves them, and you love him. Sometimes, you’ll end up more a part of these worlds than you ever were of his, and that’s ok. We take from every situation we find ourselves in. You don’t owe him for these moments and songs and smiles, but thank him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You should thank him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Thank him for the songs he sang that you downloaded and danced to for months. Thank him for the stories he told that made you want to tell stories yourself. Thank him for the words he wrote, in a room with sunshine, years before the two of you ever met. The song that was never supposed to save you, but then you found it. And it did.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Everything has a beginning, and so many things in your life, for such a long time, will lead back to him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s a gift.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And in return, he’ll thank you for silly insignificant things all the time. “Thank you for coming….for singing along…”. He’ll really be saying just….thank you. For it all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ll never be the only one. When you line up for the shows, set up camp at the backstage doors, even leave your messages of devotion online, others will see you, and notice, because they’ll be doing exactly the same. You’ll come together, because a fundamental part of most friendships is a common love, and nobody who hasnt been there will ever know. These people will become your every day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Funny, isn’t it, how you didn’t even realize they were missing until they were there?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Have you ever thought about family and wished, if just for a second, that you had been allowed to choose? Now you can. These people will become your closet confidants. They will understand you. It’s a big world out there, and the chances of you being placed right next to the people who share a little part of your soul is so small. You have to seek them out. Once you start looking, it’s easy to find them. They’ll be right there, right where you are, because they’re looking for you too. They need you just as much as you need them. These people are so important. In so many ways, it is the best part of fandom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Do you have any idea how lucky you are?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These are the people you will grow up with. By grow up, I don’t necessarily mean grow older, I mean <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">become.</em> Some of them may live in the next street, some you will never even meet. That doesn’t matter. They are all shaping you, and changing you, and when you look at them, months down the line, you will see a part of yourself, because you have shaped and changed them too. There are people on this planet who need <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">you</em> in order to become the best version of themselves. Just be. Take from eachother. A friendship that you choose is the most genuine kind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He’ll show you the world, you know. Whether you follow him to the other side of the planet for a show you just can’t miss, or whether it happens years down the line, you will see New York, and London, and Sydney, and somehow it will be because of him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ll live in different cities, and different countries, and in each place, you’ll meet people who have no idea of how you got there, and how you became the person they’re meeting. Sometimes, you won’t tell them, because it’s nice to be somebody new.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But most times you will.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It just happens, doesn’t it? Even a story about something that happened yesterday can begin with “once upon a time…”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One day, inevitably, you’ll say goodbye, thinking that it is forever, because you haven’t learnt yet that nothing ever is. But you’ll see him again and again, of course you will. Maybe you’ll be in the front row at his first ‘new beginning’ show, or maybe dancing at the back, knowing that is this someone else’s dream now, but still unable to keep away. Your eyes will meet, because that is what eyes do when they know a person, and he’ll smile at you, probably. He won’t be surprised to see you, because hearts can know each other too, and he knew you’d come. You’ll watch him with more pride than you ever knew was possible, because you cannot imagine a world where he doesn’t do this, and where you aren’t there to watch it. You’ll know though, that is is different somehow. That this is not the same chapter, even if the story hasn’t changed. This time will come, and you will know that without ever deciding to, you are giving him away.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Years later, you’ll bump in to him. It was always going to happen, really. So much of who you have become was influenced by him, your paths were bound to cross as you marked out your way in the world. You’ll sit together and talk, just because there is still so much to say. He’ll tell you everything you have ever wanted to hear, and he’ll mean it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It meant just as much to him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And every time, it will feel like an ending, but you have learnt by now that some things never end. They just begin again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Is it easier or harder to say goodbye, knowing that everything you ever hoped or imagined him to be is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">real?</em> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ll feel like giving up, sometimes. You’ll feel like you’re putting a hell of a lot of effort into a boy, or a girl, or a band, or even just a song, that will never love you back. What’s in it for you? You’ll wonder that a lot, and I can’t tell you, because everybody has their reasons. You have to discover them for yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ignore what everyone says about giving your heart to a rock star. It’s true, of course, that he’ll trample all over it and then leave it out on the pile with all of his other casualties, but what they probably won’t tell you is that he might just shape it first. Hearts break. And then they grow back together, and nothing is ever the same, but that’s fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was worth it. Of course it was. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I promise you this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You will be wonderful, and that, in part, will be because you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">let yourself love.</em> You, and the words you wrote, and the things you said, about him and to him, will become a part of his history. The amazing thing though? They’ll also become a part of yours. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When you feel like the only way for it to be is <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">over</em>, you’re wrong. When you feel like you’ll be happier if you just walk away, and give up, maybe you’re right, but you’ll never know if you do it. So don’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A</span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">nd when you feel like he, and everything that comes with being </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">so devoted, </em>is about to break you? Let him. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The lows might be low, but when you’re in the front row, screaming his lyrics back at him? It doesn’t get much higher.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He’ll make you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">so happy.</em> Sad too, of course, because this is not a movie, and he is so, so human, but happy is what you’ll remember when you tell this tale, years from now, to people you didn’t even know back then.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The story of a boy, who you somehow loved with all your heart, when maybe you didn’t really know him at all. A story of songs, and people, and moments. A story where the circumstances weren’t extraordinary, but you were.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh, you <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">will</em> tell it, because that is what stories are for. Because life, with all of it’s intricacies and nuances is just a series of things-to-tell, and this is one of your longest, and one of your favourites, and one of <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">yours.</em></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></em></span>
<i>Originally published in September 2013.</i><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f2; color: #111111; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/hzgs56Ze49s?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; transition: color 0.2s ease-in-out, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Anthony DELANOIX</a><span style="background-color: #f2f2f2; color: #111111; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; transition: color 0.2s ease-in-out, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Unsplash</a></div>
Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-80756953222714189492017-10-31T07:17:00.004-07:002017-10-31T07:17:57.925-07:00Good Old Mildred (Or why The Worst Witch was the best of them all).<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".sf ui text"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">I'll<span style="font-size: 22.6667px;"> </span>begin with a disclaimer: I think Hermione is a feminist icon for the ages just like everyone else. I doubt I can properly articulate (at least not here, writing from a commuter train on Halloween morning) how important it was for girls to see a protagonist who put books over boys; who’s power was in her intelligence; who was fierce and fearless and somehow became the coolest girl in the world without ever losing any of her nerd power. I love her. She’s brilliant. My favourite witch, though? Nah. Not even a competition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">As a young (we’re talking like 7?) kid just learning to get lost in a book, The Worst Witch series was absolute grown-up-reader goals. There were loads, it seemed, and they were long and weighty; holding one of those books made you feel like something real was happening. If I could finish those (particularly the really thick green one) I’d surely be qualified to dedicate my life to reading books or something? Also maybe they’d give me some top witchy tips, which was every young girls dream, right? So I started.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">Of course I loved Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom. The bit where the girls got their cats is the stuff of 90s-kid literary legend, and the so called “grand” wizard is an absolute joker, but this is not about them. This is about my fave witch of them all. The Worst one. Mildred Hubble.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">I love that messy little spook. Here’s why.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";"><b><u>She’s the worst.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">It’s a trope you see everywhere now, I know, but good old Mildred was the first time I remember reading about the every-girl. The one who wasn’t very good at whatever-it-was (<i>in this case being a witch. Lol. She was better than me</i>) but managed to claw her way through anyway. None of it came naturally, so she worked as hard as she knew how. She was resilient and determined; a truly lovable underdog. In the world of Cackle’s Academy she was nobody’s favourite and that made her mine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";"><b><u>She made mistakes.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">And in doing so showed us that’s alright, as long as you’re trying. Also that mistakes can be hilarious and pretty damn karmic, like that time she accidentally turned Ethel Hallow into a pig. In all seriousness, though, who hasn’t got it wrong sometimes? Mildred showed us it was totally normal to feel crap and cry about it for a while, but with good friends and a tiny little kitten, you could get through it and try again tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";"><b><u>She’s inquisitive</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">She can’t resist walking straight in to trouble if she thinks it might help (<i>or give her all the information</i>). She’s like a Witch Detective, kind of ignorant to danger if she thinks she’s doing good. In the film (<i>the best Worst Witch adaptation ever, until I write the musical</i>) she spies from the trees on Aggie and co’s creepy song and dance sesh about their new secret evil school. Fair enough it’s entirely by accident following a classic Mildred broomstick crash, but she doesn’t shy away. She stays. If it might help, Mildred will do it. She’s scared of so many every day situations, and fearless when maybe she’d do well to worry a bit. She’s (<i>mostly unintentionally</i>) a magnet for mischief, which means she’ll always have a brilliant story to tell. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";"><b><u>Nobody really knows how she got her magic.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">One of the top Worst Witch related google searches is “<i>How is Mildred Hubble a witch?</i>”. She’s apparently the academy’s first student from a non-Witch background, which suggests she’s there just ‘cause she bloody well wants to be. Her ambition is inspiring. I’ve wished often I was better at going after the things I love but am rubbish at. So what if nobody knows how she got through the door? What matters is she’s there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";"><b><u>She has a good heart.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">Mildred Hubble is really kind. Her friends are important to her. She loves that tiny gorgeous kitten despite him not being like the others (<i>because of it, even</i>). She feels genuinely bad about the Ethel/Pig thing despite Ethel being a nasty piece of work most of the time. And because this is a children’s book, we’re told her kindness means she’ll win. Everything always seems to work out OK for Mildred, and that’s because she’s nice. Does life always work like that? Well obviously not. Is it nice sometimes, though, to be told it does? It’s the nicest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";"><b><u>She’s a style icon, to be fair.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">Slouchy boots and untied laces and dresses that hang a bit weirdly are the sign of a life lived freely, right? And anyway, everyone knows messy pigtails look much better than tight ones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext";">My mum always says JKR copied The Worst Witch, and while I don’t think that’s true I must concede that the original witch-icon for my generation was born probably before Hermione was even a seed. So thanks, Jill Murphy, for the best witch of them all. And seriously, about that musical...</span></div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-44590108119134149332017-10-29T06:42:00.002-07:002017-10-29T06:42:26.939-07:00Equinox.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9s_HREiXji81TzgMzPDUSQ1D6kwvvzAv0LTZLCIZdLxUmh8NlhmQBtdvy1UA9qkqbSRxkBayV-Gg6nTtk8ERQK6HoBnUyiNuDhNWEHbwf1AGuJOYf7vXNTZ2GwJLWDOcRplbLZUFxP8CD/s1600/image1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9s_HREiXji81TzgMzPDUSQ1D6kwvvzAv0LTZLCIZdLxUmh8NlhmQBtdvy1UA9qkqbSRxkBayV-Gg6nTtk8ERQK6HoBnUyiNuDhNWEHbwf1AGuJOYf7vXNTZ2GwJLWDOcRplbLZUFxP8CD/s320/image1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The night before the Autumn equinox I had a dream so vivid that when I woke up, I wondered genuinely why I couldn't remember getting home. It was you and I, in a bar I'd never seen before, drinking red wine and catching up in a way we haven't for a long time. You told me you were getting married and I was happy to hear it, or at least had got better at pretending to be. I told you I was uncurling after too many defensive seasons; starting to trust again that just because everything went wrong it doesn't mean things can't go right anymore. You asked if I was happy. I said mostly. I asked the same of you and was almost convinced when you said yeah, you were. It was so good to see you again.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I cannot even bring myself to type that I know the relationship between letting go and the leaves falling is a close one. It's a cliche that everyone has tried to twist in to their own; I've seen countless stories of starting again over Pumpkin Spice Lattes, or how a new pencil scratching on a new notebook is the only spark you need to make palaces from paragraphs.<br />
<br />
The leaves fall, though, and I can't help but think of you. Of how it's been whole cycles of falling and growing back since I watched you leave and thought I'd miss you always. I don't. Not always. But always and forever are different things.<br />
<br />
It was cold, then it got warmer.<br />
<br />
*<br />
I thought of you a lot, but never wrote about you.<br />
<br />
I thought about you less, and wrote about you a little, mostly by accident.<br />
<br />
I wrote about you a lot, and thought about you only in those lines on the page.<br />
<br />
I wrote it all out, and found I was happy with where it left us, somewhere just out of reach; the kind of history they don't teach 'cause it's barely history at all. Close still; not a legacy yet. Like we could tip back in to it at any time. Almost over.<br />
<br />
Not quite.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I was smiling when I opened my eyes, and didn't immediately remember why. It crept back in slowly as I stretched and wriggled and pulled the duvet tighter before I'd have to inevitably let it go. That was exactly what I'd done with you, too, in the dream; the bar I'd never seen with the person who could tell by the way I sighed how I was feeling. Pulled you in; held you close and tight in the hope a little bit of the essence of you would seep in to me; that I'd be able to wonder what you'd do, when I needed a little bit of that maverick courage. That I'd know I was getting it right when I could imagine you; hear you somewhere in my mind, saying "...<i>Interesting"</i>.<br />
<br />
And then. Loosened my grip. Not a surrender, but a choice.<br />
<br />
The first day of a new season. You get to choose the ghosts you carry with you, as you cross over. There's a version of me that could love you forever, probably, and a version I left on the other side. Between the sheets. It was Thursday. Not long until they'd be thrown in to a hot wash, and come out clean.<br />
<br />
I kicked out my feet. Lay there knowing the universe was complex enough for more than one truth at a time; that I'd think of you, every now and then; that we'd be in and out of each others lives, but that somewhere between midnight and morning I had moved on. Left you there, in the bar with the fairy lights; cold for September, drinking your red wine.<br />
<br />
It wasn't happy, although I definitely felt it. It wasn't sad either. It just... was.<br />
<br />
When day and night are at equal length; no more light than darkness, no more darkness than light. Just a fact. A recognition that <i>it is what it is</i>. A balance.<br />
<br />
An equinox.Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-66555693957167831122017-10-27T09:59:00.002-07:002017-10-27T10:02:29.306-07:00"Everything in life, and nothing on a rainy Sunday afternoon" (Or, why dating is hard when you're a "Girlboss").<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLAOMD1ytzKIdKgviG6ISZxFrtJSgO8gTHGQutrHRT8Iu-el5rp8uDCiU2SjUQZB6xJHmIvpWvI7NsBanHW4Ea75SoctiSzhNy29weUiy5FrWdFFUY5JyrvSY9HvM53l7yxoQ9WDZRaz8i/s1600/atticus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="699" data-original-width="736" height="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLAOMD1ytzKIdKgviG6ISZxFrtJSgO8gTHGQutrHRT8Iu-el5rp8uDCiU2SjUQZB6xJHmIvpWvI7NsBanHW4Ea75SoctiSzhNy29weUiy5FrWdFFUY5JyrvSY9HvM53l7yxoQ9WDZRaz8i/s400/atticus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
In the iPhone note where seeds become blog posts, this one is called "<i>dating as a girl boss/independent woman"</i>. I name them crap cliche things when they come to me on cold train platforms, so that when it comes to twisting them in to sentences that sound nice, I'm left with no doubt as to what the idea <i>was</i> on the other side of a glass of white wine, at the end of a long day. (It usually works, except for that time the whole note said "<i>Mental health. The Royal Wedding". </i>To this day I have no idea...)<br />
<br />
Looking back on it now, I hate everything about that title. I hate that dating is a contrived <i>task</i>, almost (<i>when I was little I thought you'd just fancy someone and they'd fancy you and that would be that. Sorry, little Ava</i>). I hate that as a "Girl Boss" (<i>I also hate the saying Girl Boss unless my friend Georgie is saying it in a motivational pep talk)</i> it's sort of expected that you're so busy hustling (<i>hate that one too</i>) that you're "<i>too busy for love"</i>. Most of the power-women I know are either in long term relationships with brilliantly supportive partners or have made regular dating a part of their whole<i> thing</i>. I will never be a dating-blogger. It's not in me. So what do you do when you're in neither of those places? (Genuine question. <i>Clearly</i> I don't have the answers).<br />
<br />
Sometimes it feels as though I have spent almost the whole of my 20s trying to make footprints in dried cement. First as a young woman producing theatre, and later as a writer. When you're trying to bang down the locked doors to what are still in so many cases wealthy men's clubs, you grown a certain shield; a persona more bolshy than you, who can carry off purple lipstick better in a 9am meeting, and force people to listen, but who also learns very quickly not to take things personally. Just to let it all slide off; water, ducks back, just keep swimming. It isn't about you, 'cause it can't be. I learned the hard way that when you let it be about you, you spend a <i>lot</i> of time crying and the rest of it <i>tired</i>. You learn to be independent, not to ask for help and not to get caught up in approval. You solve problems alone, before anyone realises there even <i>is</i> one, 'cause if you don't, someone else will, and when they're looking for <i>one</i> producer, <i>one</i> writer, <i>one </i>girl who gets it right the first time?<br />
<br />
Well. There isn't a second time for you.<br />
<br />
We're told it isn't enough to have our <i>thing</i> (I'm not saying hustle anymore, sorry). We also need our <i>side thing</i>, and to be a <i>brand</i>, networking always, fighting our hardest, <i>doing what it takes</i>. When do you get to stop, though? At what point do you get to chill out, look at all the things you've already done, and find someone to enjoy them with?<br />
<br />
I'm making it sound like it wasn't fun. It has, all of it, been the absolute joy of my life. But how do you reconcile that girl; in her tiny yellow dress saying <i>"No, actually"</i> to giants, with the other one? The real one? The romantic? When you've lived like <i>that</i> for so long?<br />
<br />
Hell, it's hard. The irony, though? I think most people would <i>like</i> the real one better.<br />
<br />
Hashtags make her cringe. She's awkward when she hasn't got 5 drafts to put the words in an order that sounds nice; 5 chances to get it right. In real life, you get the first draft version, the one we're told is meant to make very little sense, and sometimes that is messy, and sometimes she gets it wrong. She hasn't pre-empted what you're going to say and already thought of an answer, like she does before meetings (<i>alright that's a lie. She totally has, and she's usually wrong</i>).<br />
<br />
She'd wear yoga pants about 80% of the time, if she could. She likes murder mysteries and rubbish reality tv about cheerleading, doesn't like Sondheim even though she knows she's meant to 'cause everyone does. This girl is not cool, and she's fine with that.<br />
<br />
She's learned to <i>love</i> her alone time; her 'off' time, and the result is that she doesn't <i>need</i> anyone else, so she will never settle. It takes her a while, this theoretical girl, to realise when someone is worth letting in; sharing those moments with.<br />
<br />
She will fight it, 'cause that's what she's been taught to do. Not to dwell too long on the good parts, 'cause surely just around the corner there's another battle that needs winning, another opportunity to be sought before it even really materialises? It can't be this easy, can it? It can't just <i>feel good</i> and <i>actually be good? </i>I don't entirely understand it, but all my Power-Person pals are the same. When it starts to feel like someone could be <i>someone</i>, we run. As my favourite boy said recently "<i>We end up with amazing brunch stories and no actual human boyfriends"</i>. It loses it's appeal.<br />
<br />
I know I like her better, though, most of the time. I just haven't quite figured out how to tell the GirlBoss that.<br />
<br />
There's a fear, too, unfounded as it clearly is, of losing that edge you cultivated so hard, for so long. You know you can be cold, and hard, and you don't <i>want</i> to, but you don't want to soften immediately either. It takes a lot to show weakness, but when you do, you <i>do</i>. My best friend told me recently he has never seen me cry. I thought he must be wrong, but he isn't. I've always saved that for when I was alone. It goes back to that thing I said before; nobody can know there's a problem. Pretend there isn't. Smile. Put a fur cape on, and some red lipstick. There is vulnerability in strength too, right? (No. It's the other way round).<br />
<br />
We're aware of not wanting to be intimidating (one of my best male friends told me once "<i>Of course you're intimidating. Have you met you? It's a good thing!")</i> but at the same time making it clear that we won't be walked over. Less scared of getting hurt, more scared of being the one to do the hurting, 'cause you know you make no sense sometimes. When you've not had to justify the way you are to anyone else for a long time, you forget <i>people-who-aren't-you</i> can't see inside your mind. They don't get it. Why should they? Yet you expect them to, somehow. You forget all minds don't work the same.<br />
<br />
I'm exhausted just typing this.<br />
<br />
But do you know the good part of that <i>bravado-girl</i> all independent women become? Inevitably, you start to believe it a little bit. Put on the purple lipstick enough times and it's power will seep through your skin; you'll stand tall all the time, be as fierce, if you want to, in your yoga pants as in the tiny yellow dress. Begin to <i>know</i> there's a little bit of her in you. All her good bits mixed with all your good bits. The one who gets the whole package is <i>lucky</i>. But it'll take someone special.<br />
<br />
I <i>love </i>being both. I love stomping around the world demanding that people listen, and impressing people is, I'm sorry, one of my very favourite things. I like that I'm surprising sometimes. Also, though, I love being surprised. I love when someone just tells me what to do, and takes the pressure off for a moment; tells me to shut up, that it's my turn to listen. I love being impressed.<br />
<br />
I want a person I can take to my press nights <i>and</i> lay in bed watching Mindhunter with as we talk about our days. I am going to be both. I am going to have both. That is a choice. It's up to me what that means. It's up to me to figure out how.<br />
<br />
'Cause the thing about whatever we're calling ourselves now? Power women, Girl Bosses, Hustlers, Independent women? We know we're not easy. We're elusive, and complicated, and sometimes downright difficult.<br />
<br />
But we're usually worth it.<br />
<br />
And as far as vulnerability goes? We'll get there.<br />
<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-81372480304022170822017-10-26T07:41:00.004-07:002017-10-26T07:41:59.134-07:0010 books I'll always recommend (Part 2).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdGUyceJCi4BnaDqkjbkz1jnP-qCgpL3gHe2hL4YFOo55vKoREOUcDUd7fpN4N8VmU5xXn9H5z2bv687IrqS9obYgGHnTwokpfB8zGifV2dyyrPknxtj_lmmUUe80eOMiyXR7j9pCNy4oO/s1600/IMG_3843.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdGUyceJCi4BnaDqkjbkz1jnP-qCgpL3gHe2hL4YFOo55vKoREOUcDUd7fpN4N8VmU5xXn9H5z2bv687IrqS9obYgGHnTwokpfB8zGifV2dyyrPknxtj_lmmUUe80eOMiyXR7j9pCNy4oO/s320/IMG_3843.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
The problem, you know, with writing these lists in parts, is that by the time you get to writing up the second you have remembered <i>so many more</i> books you think should make the cut. I've gone from wracking my brains trying to remember my favourites, to wishing I could just <i>stop thinking of them</i>. So I'm posting it before the list grows even longer. As Autumn settles in further, and snuggled-up-reading-nights take precedence over almost everything else, here's the second part of 10 books I'll always recommend.<br />
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6. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Untold-Stories-Broadway-worlds-theaters/dp/0985471867/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509021584&sr=8-1&keywords=the+untold+stories+of+broadway" target="_blank">The Untold Stories of Broadway</a> - Jennifer Ashley Tepper<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Do you wish you were in the audience during Barbra Streisand's final performance of Funny Girl on Broadway? Do you wonder how far Jonathan Groff was willing to go to score tickets to Thoroughly Modern Millie? And are you dying to know which beloved TV star and Tony Award winner was caught with his pants down in front of a movie legend? From opening nights to closing nights. From secret passageways to ghostly encounters. From Broadway debuts to landmark productions. Score a front row seat to hear hundreds of stories about the most important stages in the world, seen through the eyes of the producers, actors, stage hands, writers, musicians, company managers, dressers, designers, directors, ushers, and door men who bring The Great White Way to life each night. You'll never look at Broadway the same way again. </i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mutual friends and twitter followers have been telling me for years that I am the British Jennifer Tepper. I get it. I think, when it comes to theatre, our brains work in sort of the same way. So much so that when I first read this first volume of her <i>brilliant</i> Untold Stories, I considered getting in touch to be like "<i>Girl. I wanna do the West End version. Shall we?</i>". In the end I just blogged a few of my own untold stories from the Gielgud to the Garrick to the Duchess rooftop the week before my writing debut, inspired by the expanse of the stories in Jen's book, and the care taken with them. She spoke to ushers and stage door keepers and box office treasurers as well as legendary composers, book writers, producers and actors. These are <i>everyone's</i> stories, told tenderly and just <i>really</i> <i>well written</i>. It's a difficult thing, I think, to take other people's words and craft them in to a cohesive love letter to American theatre, but that is exactly what this is. And the story from Jonathan Larson's friend about their first visit to the Nederlander? Cried on the bus. If you love theatre, or people who love theatre, you should read this.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">7<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Achilles-Bloomsbury-Modern-Classics/dp/1408891387/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509022116&sr=1-1&keywords=the+song+of+achilles" target="_blank">. The Song of Achilles </a>- Madeline Miller</span></span><br />
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their difference, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. </span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.</i></span></span><br />
<br />
This is my sister's favourite book. I resisted for a long time, because ancient philosophy isn't <i>really </i>my thing, but a spontaneous overnight visit with nothing to read in the bath lead to me asking "<i>Remind me what it's about</i>?".<br />
<br />
"<i>It's basically ancient Greek philosophy Gay fanfiction</i>" was, I think, what she said. I was like "G<i>imme the book". </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
As a person I'm an absolute sucker for a forbidden love story, and as I writer I love nothing more than a world so <i>fully understood</i> by it's author that you can feel part of it without questioning any of the details. The Song of Achilles absolutely has both. It is a rough, tender, frustrating and <i>oh god so passionate</i> story about not just romantic love, but familial love and friendship-as-love too, and I was so taken by gorgeous, arrogant Achilles <i>and</i> sensitive, rational Patroclus.<br />
<br />
You know when you just want fictional characters to be happy? There were times I was absolutely raging at them both; times I wanted to reach back through history to grab them, and push them together, and say "<i>Just have a conversation, please!". </i>It's also, I'm told, mostly very loyal to the plot of the Iliad, so unlike so many of these 'new imaginings' will be loved by philosophers (like my sis) and historians alike, not just romantic readers looking for the next thing to get all-up-in-their-hearts. Ancient philosophy may not be my thing, but love stories in all their forms definitely are. I absolutely loved it.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sister-Rosamund-Lupton/dp/0749942010/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509023572&sr=1-1&keywords=sister+rosamund+lupton" target="_blank">8. Sister - Rosamund Lupton</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>When Beatrice gets a frantic call in the middle of Sunday lunch to say that her younger sister, Tess, is missing, she boards the first flight home to London. But as she learns about the circumstances surrounding her Tess's disappearance, she is stunned to discover how little she actually knows of her sister's life - and unprepared for the terrifying truths she must now face.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The police, Beatrice's fiancé and even her mother accept they have lost Tess, but Beatrice refuses to give up on her. So she embarks on a dangerous journey to discover the truth, no matter the cost.</i></span></div>
I made notes on all these books before typing this post. The note for Sister is all in capitals and says nothing more than THIS BOOK IS SO UNDERRATED. So. There you go.<br />
<br />
To elaborate, though, the twist in Sister is the best I have ever read; one of the only twists I <i>truly</i> did not see coming. It's crime fiction written like literary fiction; no cliche or unnecessary sensationalist language to be seen. It's a thriller with real substance, and an emotion you don't often find in the must-turn-the-page books. There have been a <i>lot</i> of great literary thrillers in the years since I read Sister, many of which have had huge mainstream success. For me, none of them have quite lived up. I can't wait 'til it's been long enough that I don't <i>really</i> remember how it all goes down, so I can read it and be surprised all over again. I could never definitively answer if asked what book I'd most like to read again for the first time, but I'm pretty sure that most of the time I'd say this one.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tales-City-1/dp/0552998761/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509025179&sr=1-1&keywords=tales+of+the+city" target="_blank">9. Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>San Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous - unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.</i></span></span><br />
<br />
Tales of the City is a legacy book; the kind I think most people come to through a recommendation. It's an induction, of sorts, I think: a person you love tells you to read this book (these books), and you're introduced to a whole lot more people you love, albeit fictional. I read Tales of the City because my Mum told me to. She heard about the books from her friend Vanessa. I bonded even more with Nicci when we realised we both loved them, passed them on to Siobhan, who fell in love with them too. There is something about these books that feels like belonging, and home. Also they're funny, romantic, and completely ridiculous, all of which are things I love. There's a cult in one too so...<br />
<br />
I must have been about 12 when I read these books for the first time. I didn't know a <i>lot</i> of openly LGBT people, beyond a few friends of my Mum and obvs Stephen Gately, and certainly hadn't read books with LGBT characters. It was amazing to me, as a child who thought she was a lot older than she was, that I was <i>only just learning about this now</i>. I thought I knew it all and Tales of the City showed me I <i>really</i> didn't; there were so many more ways to love, and live, and struggle and thrive. I wanted to go to San Francisco (I now have) and have friends as brilliant and fucked up as the Barbary Lane gang (I now have) and <i>meet the man who wrote all this</i> (that too). 'Cause the thing is, he wrote it all as if it was <i>completely normal</i>. As if people lived like this; loudly and messily, just fumbling their way through. And in reading it, I realised that of course it <i>is</i>. That they do. We all do.<br />
<br />
More recently, Armistead Maupin has continued the story; written more where before it seemed we'd reached the ending. My mum refuses to read them. For her, where it stopped was perfect; she doesn't need any more. I get that. I have, though, and I'm glad I have. It's like checking in with old friends. The copies we share are worn and well-thumbed; most have been dropped in the bath at least once, and being able to find all of them at the same time is a rarity. It feels like a sort of sacrilege to buy new ones. Like I said, these are legacy books, and so much of the beauty is in the stories you build around them; the crispy pages and bent spines are sort of why I love them. <br />
<br />
10. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Paid-College-Friendship-Musical/dp/140880221X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509026726&sr=8-1&keywords=how+i+paid+for+college" target="_blank">How I Paid for College - Marc Acito</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It's 1983, and in a sleepy community in New Jersey seventeen-year-old Edward Zanni is Peter Panning his way through a carefree summer of magic and mischief. However, the fun comes to a halt when his father refuses to pay for Edward to study acting at Julliard. Edward's truly in a bind. He's ineligible for scholarships because his father earns too much. And, in a sure sign that he's destined for a life in the arts, Edward's incapable of holding down a job. So he turns to his loyal (but immoral) friends to help him steal the tuition fees from his father, all the while practising for their high school performance of Grease. Disguising themselves as nuns and priests, they merrily scheme their way through embezzlement, money-laundering, identity theft, forgery and blackmail. But along the way, Edward also learns the value of friendship, hard work and how you're not really a man until you can beat up your father, metaphorically or otherwise.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've reached number 10 with 3 books still on my list. I didn't know if it should be <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beach-Alex-Garland/dp/0241976561/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509027376&sr=1-1&keywords=the+beach" target="_blank">The Beach</a>, which I love with absolutely no ability to articulate why, or <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beautiful-Ruins-Jess-Walter/dp/067092265X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509027401&sr=1-1&keywords=beautiful+ruins" target="_blank">Beautiful Ruins</a>, the last chapter of which is, just as a standalone piece, among the most beautiful things I've ever read. In the end, though, I had to go for How I Paid for College (sub-headed "<i>A Tale of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theatre</i>", which I think tells you all you need to know). </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">HIPFC was another that was passed around my group of friends, all of us teenagers with very different tastes, yet somehow finding something we commonly loved in this book. It was the first book I have ever read about musical theatre, and came at the exact point I was starting to explore maybe being a part of that, somehow. It's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">hilarious</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> and awkward and relatable and refers to Pippin a </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">lot.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> It felt like a book that was of-my-world; like someone was writing just for us and people like us. There were so many ways in, because we knew these people, and loved them. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Once, I lost my copy and immediately ordered another, because being without it was not an option (it was down the side of my bed, also known as the Book Graveyard of Nunhead. Some absolute </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">treasures</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> made their way down there when I'd fallen asleep with them in my hand). For most of my 20s "Like in <i>HIPFC" </i>was a pretty common phrase (we actually called it <i>HIPFC</i> for a while 'cause another thing we loved was abbreviations). I have a fondness for this one that probably goes beyond any of the others; this book is comfort and laughter and being a teenager just figuring out that she could <i>do this</i>, if she wanted. Work in theatre. Meet people who <i>loved it too</i>. It was coming, I knew. It might take a while, though. So in the mean time, I'd be happy just to read about it.</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-15112451700951500302017-10-22T05:13:00.002-07:002017-10-22T05:13:38.715-07:00xoxo (A New York Love Story).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEV3Kw_Je3dXrt4lLSwSoqJIjHTbcSd2q4oT7D49O-wSfljGMWZLInvOAp1XSXgqQ2AziRNhcYsPCY8i9N_D9t2RtgCYJs7PC8A0Bgwnze4-odRsdehA_3EtqIGJQwEmq-8lnIsi6XXf_d/s1600/image1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEV3Kw_Je3dXrt4lLSwSoqJIjHTbcSd2q4oT7D49O-wSfljGMWZLInvOAp1XSXgqQ2AziRNhcYsPCY8i9N_D9t2RtgCYJs7PC8A0Bgwnze4-odRsdehA_3EtqIGJQwEmq-8lnIsi6XXf_d/s320/image1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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If you've seen or spoken to me in the past few weeks, you may have noticed that I'm in the midst of a Gossip Girl re-watch. The headbands are back, I'm making a concerted effort to wear heels on non-occasion days, and fantasising regularly about drinks at the bar of a Manhattan hotel late at night. I just bloody <i>love</i> that show, not only 'cause the girls are aspirational and the boys are beautiful, but as a love letter to my favourite city.<br />
<br />
I spent most of my 20s saying I would live there one day. I thought that moment had passed, but in the past month or so it's creeping back in ever so slightly; why wouldn't I want to spend a bit of extended time in my favourite place in the world? I've been thinking about it a lot. What I've mostly been thinking is how different a place can be for everyone; how we all have our spots that you won't find in a guidebook; the places where we've made memories, or watched great shows, or even just drank a brilliant Margarita. My New York is <i>completely </i>different to Blair and Serena's, and that's part of the magic. You can never experience it all.<br />
<br />
People ask for my New York recommendations a lot, and I edit the list completely based on <i>who wants to know</i>. Some people I know would be like a fish out of water in Brooklyn, some completely unimpressed by the menu at Cafeteria. Here's the definitive version, though. The truest things-I-love-in-new-york list I can muster. As if I was telling <i>myself</i> what to check out in this centre-of-the-universe kinda town.<br />
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<b><i><a href="https://www.gansevoorthotelgroup.com/hotels/gansevoort-park-avenue-nyc/" target="_blank">The Gansevoort Park Hotel</a></i></b><br />
I only ever seem to tell this story <i>actually in</i> the Gansevoort Park hotel, because I'm reminded every time I arrive. The first time I stayed, on my first work trip with no idea what to expect, I got my key, opened the door, and said aloud to the most beautiful hotel room that had ever been mine "<i>Are you being serious?". </i>Within about 20 minutes it was my favourite hotel in the world, and it has stayed that way for the 5 years since.<br />
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No matter how long it's been, you're welcomed back like family. It has a <i>smell</i> that is so uniquely Gansevoort; so synonymous with happiness and feeling like I can <i>actually breathe</i> for a weekend (New York does that). When I was in town with The 8th Fold and staying in an apartment 'cause a month in a hotel was out of the question, they let me use their rooftop pool (<i>yeah</i>) anyway. The selfie lighting in the pool bathrooms, by the way? Best I've ever found.<br />
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I would never have said I was a 5* hotel kind of girl; I would have expected to like the luxury, sure, but prefer to spend the money on theatre tickets or Sephora lipsticks. The Gansevoort Park grabbed my heart <i>hard</i>, and made me change my mind. It's worth it.<br />
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The first time I stayed, somewhere in those first 20 minutes, I danced in the shower to a song with the repeated line "<i>It just makes me so happy"</i> and I remember thinking <i>yeah. It does</i>. Still. Every time.<br />
<a href="http://cafeteriagroup.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<b><i><a href="http://cafeteriagroup.com/" target="_blank">Cafeteria</a></i></b><br />
I was taken to Cafeteria for the first time with the promise of a nice vibe and good, unpretentious food. The words <i>Mac and Cheese Spring Rolls</i> weren't even mentioned until we reached the table. (Let me say it again. <i>Mac and Cheese Spring Rolls). </i>That's really all you need to know. Last time I was there, we had the spring rolls, all three kinds of <i>actual</i> Mac and Cheese, and about 4 other sides. It was an <i>uncomfortable</i> amount of food, but we couldn't decide 'cause it was all so great. They're open 24 hours, too. It's like the New York Balans, but somewhere you'd choose even if everything else was open. It's <i>high</i> on my list of places to take people. I wish they had a cookbook. In one of the toilets, there's a gorgeous neon that reads <i>You Are Here</i>. It's a reminder, always, of how glad I am to be. (I have a photo of it on my writing desk. To keep me present, but also just as affirmation that I have been. That I will be again).<br />
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<b><i>Soho Strolls</i></b><br />
One of my favourite ever New York City days was the slightly hungover Sunday I spent completely alone. I walked from our midtown apartment down to Soho, and spent three hours with my headphones on and no destination. I stopped by <i>BookMarc</i> (it's a Marc Jacobs bookshop which is lol) and bought a notebook to celebrate being in town as a writer. I listened to a playlist called <i>I have a crush on you</i>, which is how I felt about the city <i>and</i> briefly a boy who lived there. I had nowhere to be except wherever I was, and it felt <i>gorgeous</i>. The thing about Soho is it has the kind of buzz that is somehow mellowing. It's busy in a comfortable way. That particular lazy Sunday, it was like the eye of a storm, where so much is happening around you but it feels somehow... quiet. Like an uncurling of sorts; one of those head-clearing days where nothing much and everything happens all at once.<br />
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(I also spent an afternoon cycling pretty much the same route with the 8th Fold dream team, in a massive floppy hat and completely inappropriate dress. You know those things you only realise afterwards were actually kind of scary? One of those. I <i>loved</i> it).<br />
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<b><i><a href="https://mckittrickhotel.com/sleep-no-more/" target="_blank">Sleep No More, 11pm.</a></i></b><br />
I'm not about to get wordy about the show again. I've done it before. You all know. Go at 11pm, though. Go when you think you're too tired to keep your eyes open, heavy with jet-lag and happy hour cocktails. Go when leaving the hotel feels hard. Go when it's sort of cold, even in Summer. Queue in the street as people leave restaurants and hail cabs and wind down towards sleep. Go inside. I promise you won't be tired when you leave. New York at 2am carrying <i>that particular buzz</i> is something that has to be experienced.<br />
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<b><i>Times Square, 3am.</i></b><br />
Walking home from our wrap party, very late at night, my friend Glen decided that I had to see Times Square at 3am, and have all the magic be <i>just mine</i> for a moment. We stood at the bottom of the red steps, three of us post-show tipsy and happy and tired, and talked about New York City. I laughed a <i>lot</i> that night. It was all lit up despite the middle-of-the-night hour, and there were people and taxis around but nothing like during the day. I could have put my arms out and spun around and not touched anyone else. Broadway still glittered around us. It was Summer, and still warm. We had a slice of dollar pizza, and they showed me how to eat it like a real New Yorker. I walked home to 9th Avenue, and the streetlights made it feel like it was almost morning, despite the fact it wasn't at all. Sometimes, when I wonder why I still do it, I think about that night, and the magic that they said would be <i>all for me; </i>for a moment it felt like it really was.<br />
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This city, though, is a palimpsest. It changes all the time, and you return and things aren't where they used to be, but you can still feel their ghosts. My favourite middle of the night dinner spot was Les Halles. Open late, down on Park Avenue South, it was the kind of place where you could pop back in to the hotel, kick off your heels and replace them with trainers, quickly wipe off your eyeliner and head straight back out. I drank beer there after Broadway shows, and deconstructed what I'd just seen, and laughed and laughed. The last time I walked past, it was gone. I miss it. I wouldn't know where to go, now, for an impromptu midnight steak date. (The night I saw Hedwig, I went to Les Halles after and drank 8 glasses of water 'cause my mouth was dry, I guess from my jaw being on the floor for the entirety of Darren Criss' performance. Another time our waiter comped us an expensive bottle of wine 'cause we promised to check out his Youtube channel. I feel genuinely bad that I never did).<br />
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A few weeks ago, I was telling the story of the time I went to New York twice in the space of three weeks (I was <i>lucky</i> at 22. These things happened sometimes). "For a boy?", the person I was telling texted back.<br />
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No. For a city that has never once failed me, even when I didn't know what I needed, but knew I needed something. That in the space of a weekend gave me a party where Idina Menzel sang to a living room and Josh Groban was a guest (<i>tell you another time</i>), and shabby-chic East Village brunches. $8 martinis downtown and 5* hotel bars, all in the space of a night. Broadway and 54 Below, just blocks apart. It's the only city where even on my own I don't feel <i>alone</i> at all. There is always someone in New York you can call.<br />
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It would take a hell of a boy to beat that.<br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-43278587059801132802017-10-21T05:17:00.000-07:002018-02-04T01:24:35.369-08:0030 before 30 (Part 3).The third and final part of my 30-before-30. The writing is done... now to actually attempt the doing.<br />
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<b><i>21. Try aerial yoga.</i></b><br />
You need a strong core. I barely have a core. I'm hoping this will be one of those situations where I'm more equipped for it than I think I am. (<i>It won't be).</i><br />
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<b><i>22. Make the perfect playlist</i></b>.<br />
In the same way that some people can tell they're hormonal when they eat more or get irrationally irritable, a real warning sign for me is when I can't stand any of my playlists (<i>also when I eat more and get irrationally irritable). </i>This year I want to create a playlist made up of only songs I truly love. If I go off something, it leaves the list. If I can't stop listening to something, it goes on. It's a fluid things that will change with my mood I'm sure, but by next October I want a collection of songs that I can listen to even on my worst days and smile. 30 songs, maybe? Yeah. Let's say that.<br />
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<b><i>23. Submit to the New York Times Modern Love Column.</i></b><br />
I am not the kind of person who puts things out in to the world that she is not sure about. Actually, that may not be entirely true; a little uncertainty adds a certain excitement, and there are times I can't resist that risk; that hanging-in-the-balance place before you know how a thing is going to land. More accurately, then, I am not the kind of person who puts things out in to the world that she does not believe in. To submit a piece to the <i>New York Times</i>? Under my own name? For a column I love that I think is a space where my voice might actually fit? Well that would mean I've worked; created something where I can't afford to hold back; written something <i>good</i>. I highly doubt it will be published, ‘cause I’m not Andrew Rannells and that is fine (his essay made me cry on my bathroom floor). That's not the point at all. The point is that it <i>could</i> be, 'cause I crafted and drafted and edited and read it over and over and over, then pressed send and... let it go. (<i>I started writing it last night. I'm excited about this one</i>).<br />
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<b><i>24. Go a month without alcohol.</i></b><br />
Ugh I really didn't want to put this on here because I don't actually want to do it. I <i>love</i> a glass of something on a Sunday at my parents house, and Prosecco brunches, and a Gin at the theatre. The last time I went a month with no alcohol at all, though, was when I was 20 and travelling around America, too young to even get in to a bar. I think once every ten years sounds like a good time-frame for a teetotal month, and maybe it'll make me productive and fresh and energised at the same time. We'll see. And if anyone has any <i>good</i> alcohol-free drink recs, please let me know!<br />
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<b><i>25. Be on a podcast.</i></b><br />
I've been on a podcast before. I think it was about the impact of <i>Wicked</i> on my theatrical generation? I can't really remember, it was a long time ago. I definitely talked about Wicked. <i>Anyway</i>. I think Podcasts are a really brilliant way of telling stories (when it's done right). I want to write podcasts, eventually, among other things. This year, though, I'll settle for guesting on someone else's. I studied (and <i>loved)</i> radio production for a while, and every time I sit at a mixing desk or in front of a mic it still feels like going to some version of an almost-home. More of that, please. The scope of how we tell stories is growing all the time, and podcasting is one of the most exciting ways to me.<br />
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<b><i>26. Visit Berlin.</i></b><br />
It's just been a really long time coming. I've been promising since about 2013 that I'd make it out, so it's ridiculous that I haven't been to visit the soul-friends that live there yet. Everyone I know seems to fall in love with it. Soon.<br />
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<b><i>27. Write for someone else.</i></b><br />
That is to say, be published somewhere other than here.<br />
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<b><i>28. Revisit old work.</i></b><br />
There's this thing I wrote (the first real <i>thing I wrote</i>) that feels increasingly like unfinished business. It's been almost half a decade and still I meet people sometimes who, when I'm introduced, say "<i>Oh my god, you wrote <b>that</b>". </i>I don't know what it's future life is. I don't get to decide that alone 'cause it isn't just mine. Maybe it doesn't have one. This year, though, I'd like to snuggle back down with that script, and see what it looks like from 29. Give it another chance, maybe, or let it lie for good. 'Cause it's good. We made something magic. I want to do it again.<br />
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<b><i>29. Transcend the mundane.</i></b><br />
Once, when he thought I wasn't listening, I heard one old friend say to another "The thing about her is, she has an ability to transcend the mundane I've rarely seen in anyone else. There are... very few limits". What that actually <i>means</i> is that when I was 23, I had no idea how the world worked and barged around the theatre industry saying <i>well why not?</i> because I didn't <i>know</i> why not. Turns out sometimes all people need to say yes is to be asked the question. I got older, lost that innocence, and began to fit better in to what people actually expect, which is growing up, I think. But I miss that attitude. I miss thinking we could do <i>anything</i>, even in the moments I <i>absolutely knew</i> we couldn't. I miss asking "<i>Is this crazy?"</i>, safe in the knowledge I would try anyway. I can't get back that naivety, I know, but this year I want to transcend the mundane again; to ask why not a little bit more, and see what happens.<br />
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<b><i>30. 30 is a secret.</i></b><br />
I'll tell you when it happens ;)<br />
<br />
Part 1 - <a href="http://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/30-before-30-part-1.html" target="_blank">Here.</a><br />
Part 2 - <a href="http://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/30-before-30-part-2.html" target="_blank">Here.</a>Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-10066127033038280802017-10-15T14:22:00.000-07:002017-10-15T14:40:01.970-07:0010 books I'll always recommend (Part 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1AiIAwaNKheJKfRSV1CQJ9jaKzJ-U_klTfc1ivi5QXY0qQXS6f5HG0wIWXz1Fheusskc6UH2NWZ0BkGTn8vgmiTlHSDGAXBQoWebl8UzW6aDFLQr2_dY6aYWQAs2wIuPZrpmZqyzUXuOr/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-10-15+at+22.26.42.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1202" data-original-width="1206" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1AiIAwaNKheJKfRSV1CQJ9jaKzJ-U_klTfc1ivi5QXY0qQXS6f5HG0wIWXz1Fheusskc6UH2NWZ0BkGTn8vgmiTlHSDGAXBQoWebl8UzW6aDFLQr2_dY6aYWQAs2wIuPZrpmZqyzUXuOr/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-10-15+at+22.26.42.png" width="320" /></a></div>
When I was little, there was a running joke in my family that I wouldn't even stop reading to walk places. My nose would be in a book as I moved from room to room, and one of my most recurrent and vivid childhood memories is my Nan telling anyone who tried to speak to me "<i>Leave her alone, she's reading"</i>.<br />
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While my free time has become somewhat rarer since then, I still try to always have a book on the go (Which is ideal since I now have to read 100 before I turn 30. Thanks for that, self), and love passing on the knowledge of a <i>really good one</i> to the people in my life I know will get it. That said, I find recommending books in general a pretty hard thing to do.<br />
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It's personal, isn't it? For example, I'm the only person I've ever met who didn't like <i>The Book Thief</i>. There are books I loved because of how I related that left other people cold. Taste is subjective, and it feels personal too when a book I loved doesn't hit the mark for someone else. The ten (<i>five)</i> books below, though, are the ones I love enough to always say <i>give it a try</i>. They're funny and sad and expansive and romantic and juvenile and deep and gorgeous, and they are the ones I come back to time and time again. So yes, recommending books is <i>hard</i>, but these are just some of the titles, in no order at all, that make it still-worth-doing. A list in two parts, because oops, it got wordy.<br />
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Let's start.<br />
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1. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Christodora-Tim-Murphy/dp/1509818596/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508099964&sr=8-1&keywords=christodora" target="_blank">Christodora</a> - Tim Murphy<br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">In this vivid and compelling novel, Tim Murphy follows a diverse set of characters whose fates intertwine in an iconic building in Manhattan's East Village, the Christodora. The Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions. Their neighbour, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly's and Jared's lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, the couple's adopted son, Mateo, grows to appreciate the opportunities for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers.</span></i></div>
This is a <i>very</i> new (like, last-week-new) addition to the list. One of the slightly clinical but cool things about reading on a Kindle is that you can see how far you've come, and I was 9% of my way through this book when I realised <i>I was in</i>. It's about legacy, relationships, addiction, AIDS, more legacy, love and New York City, and in every sense it is epic. I missed the characters when I wasn't reading it. I wanted so desperately for them to be ok. While parts of it were set in the 80s and parts in 2020, it did not feel dated (in either direction) at all. Things happen (<i>lots of things happen) </i>but it is a book about people, and as a person who falls madly in love with fictional people often, to see that done well is always a pleasure. One of the reviews called it Angels in Manhattan (which doesn't make sense 'cause <i>Angels in America </i>is... already set in Manhattan) but if you love that and want a (clumsy way of saying it but) more up to date version... it's this.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anna-French-Kiss/dp/140957993X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1508076064&sr=1-1&keywords=anna+and+the+french+kiss" target="_blank">2. Anna and the French Kiss</a> - Stephanie Perkins<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Anna is less than thrilled to be shipped off to boarding school in Paris, leaving a fledgling romance behind - until she meets Etienne St Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all... including a girlfriend. But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with a longed-for French kiss?</i></span><br />
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Young Adult romantic fiction? Am I joking? Um. I've read it more times than I can count and it still makes my stomach flip. Plus I was definitely in my 20s the first time, which makes me more-than-qualified to say the appeal of <i>Anna</i> goes far beyond teenage girls. For people who always seem to fancy their friends (<i>me</i>), people who can take a while to admit how they feel (<i>so, me</i>) and people who live for the could-actually-happen fairytale ending (<i>guess who?</i>) this book has it all. Also Etienne St. Clair is probably top of the list of characters-from-books-I-fancy, but that's another post. (Great idea, self. Write that one...). This book is my go-to comfort read. My literary happy place. Proof that romantic fiction can have substance and feeling. Ugh. I love it so damn much.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Life-Shortlisted-Booker-Prize/dp/1447294831/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1508076415&sr=1-1&keywords=a+little+life" target="_blank">3. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever.</i></span><br />
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Y'know, this is sort of cheating. Of all the books on this list, A Little Life is the one I'm selective about recommending, 'cause I know very well it won't be for everyone. I picked this up because a woman in a bookshop told a friend of mine it was similar to <i>The Secret History (</i>I disagree, but I see why she said it). It's devastating (<i>in a good way</i>) and exhausting (<i>in a good way</i>), and one of the most gorgeous studies of male friendship I've read. Another one where character is <i>the whole point</i> (or at least it was for me. I found myself wishing away some of the action just to get back to how these men loved each other through it), I still miss Willem sometimes almost a year after I finished the book. If I recommend this one to you, it's considered. It means I see a bit of me in you, and think you'd love it in the same way I did, despite it being hard and painful and tiring. If I recommend this one, it's a compliment, and it means I want to talk about it. This book sparks <i>real</i> conversation. That's a rare and gorgeous thing.<br />
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4. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-History-Donna-Tartt/dp/0140167773/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1508100151&sr=1-1&keywords=the+secret+history" target="_blank">The Secret History </a>- Donna Tartt<br />
<i style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.</span></i><br />
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I know I said in-no-order, but this is my number one. I first read The Secret History when I was <i>far</i> too young (12? 13 maybe?) and it has been my favourite ever since. Contrary to most of the others on this list, I don't really like (or care about) any of the characters on any sort of deep level, although I simultaneously love them all. With this one, the magic is in the action (and the logic behind the action even more so). To create a world both so elitist and accessible? So compelling and alien and relatable? That's really something. Donna Tartt is a genius, and this book is dark, and rough around the edges, and an absolute classic. <i>It's about using ancient Greek methods of transcending reality in the modern day, and the issues of morality that come with that. </i>Sounds surreal, right? Well yeah, it is. And it also makes complete and absolute sense, and with that juxtaposition comes it's genius. You're gonna have to trust me on this one, 'cause I couldn't possibly articulate why it is <i>so</i> good. (If you don't fall head over heels for The Secret History, I am going to need to know why. In essay form).<br />
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5. Anything by <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=david+levithan" target="_blank">David Levithan</a><br />
In my early 20s, I heard David Levithan read from his book <i>Two Boys Kissing</i>. By that time, I had been intrigued by his LGBT cult classic <i>Boy Meets Boy</i>, completely floored by how thematically close his stunning <i>Love is the Higher Law</i> was to our own <i>The 8th Fold</i>, and called his collaboration <i>Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List</i> my favourite book for a long time, because I had never read anything that felt quite so much like holding up a mirror to my own life. David Levithan was already my favourite author, be it the poetry of <i>The Realm of Possibility</i> or the last pages of <i>Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist</i> which brought me to tears every time. And then I went to this reading, on my own, in the rain, and he said so many prophetic and wonderful things, but the one that stuck was that he always writes from a place of positivity, rather than despair. I felt like we were the only people in the room, in that moment. Like he was saying <i>I think you do that too, don't you? </i>And I did. And I do. Even when a subject is sad, I try my very best to come at it from a place of hope. There are some things that are not pretty, but with the right words in the right order, you can give them the greatest chance of becoming a lesson rather than something to be melancholy about. David Levithan is not a poet but his work is poetic. He understands humanity and what it means to love a person in (from what I've seen so far) almost all ways. Start with <i>Boy Meets Boy</i>. Beyond that, talk to me. Tell me what you love (<i>what you need to read, 'cause I bet he has something that fits). </i>Let me make you a list. Are his books my all time favourite books? No, I can't say that. Is he my favourite writer? Oh, God. Not even a question. Yes.<br />
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<i>Have you read any of these books? Did you love them? Hate them? I want to know! Likewise, if you're going to now, please let's talk about it! Part 2 coming in the next few days.</i><br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-40622992404227244012017-10-13T14:05:00.000-07:002018-02-04T01:23:33.241-08:0030 before 30. (Part 2).Let's just jump straight in then, shall we?<br />
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<b><i>11. Go skinny dipping.</i></b><br />
'Cause I never have. Once on a big family holiday everyone else had a go, but I couldn't 'cause I'd fallen off the side of an armchair that I was standing on dancing to The Spice Girls, landed <i>very</i> hard, and couldn't move my wrist. So. There you go.<br />
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<b><i>12. Make it back to Paris.</i></b><br />
My go-to line about Paris is that I have loved cities more, but I have never loved one faster. My one and only Paris trip was among the most perfect almost-weeks I've ever had, but it was short lived and too long ago. This year I want to make it back, for macarons and Champagne and secret nooks in magic bookshops, and to find the little bit of my heart I left there in 2014.<br />
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<b><i>13. Host an afternoon tea.</i></b><br />
For charity, partly because it feels a little bit Gossip Girl but mostly because one of my favourite people in the known universe is about to embark on a pretty big fundraising challenge (but that's her story, not mine), and I think when you can find a way to help the people you love do things that are important, you should. Details to come. You're all invited. (We will pressure you to attend, in fact).<br />
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<b><i>14. Meet a sloth.</i></b><br />
I went back and forth on including this one, because I don't have any plans to visit any countries where Sloth sanctuaries are common place, and I'm being pretty careful to only include things I think <i>actually could happen</i> (which is why return to New Orleans and buy a property, both longlisted pipedreams, have been struck). In the end, though, I couldn't not. If anyone knows a way to make this happen that isn't <i>go to Costa Rica, </i>I'm listening.<br />
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<b><i>15. Decide what the book is.</i></b><br />
"Write a book" is on so many 30-before-30 lists that it feels a little bit like it doesn't even count. Also, I did that when I was like 20 (a first draft of a novel before I realised it's ok to be a writer and not want to write novels). My book-thing, then, is to <i>decide what the book is</i>. There is one in me, surely, and while as-of-now I'm fairly sure it'll be a collection of essays, I have no idea beyond that. So the plan is to decide, and do something (<i>anything, even a tiny thing</i>) about it.<br />
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<b><i>16. Fly first class.</i></b><br />
I have flown premium economy a few times, thanks to airmiles and business trips and the first time making the guy in the airport laugh (it literally pays to be nice), but never First Class. In many ways, it goes against all my principals to spend money on a more comfortable flight that could be put to far better use once I got there. In others, it feels like a thing I should experience by the time I turn 30. So it makes the list... A one-way first class flight to anywhere. (<i>Made even better if I find a way to not pay cash for it...</i>)<br />
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<b><i>17. Read 100 books.</i></b><br />
Typed that before I realised how ridiculous it is in 51 weeks. Oops. Can't delete it now.<br />
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<b><i>18. Collaborate on something artistic.</i></b><br />
At 28, for reasons I've talked about and around enough (<i>lets's not pretend any of it is a secret)</i>, I made a "no more adaptations and no more collaborations" rule in my creative work. Well, a girls prerogative is to change her mind often and unexpectedly, right? This year I want to join forces, with someone, on something artistic. Maybe a blog project, maybe some essays, maybe even a musical... it's about reminding myself as much as anyone that collaboration can be wonderful when the people you're collaborating with are right.<br />
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<b><i>19. Stay in bed all day.</i></b><br />
I don't do this. The last time I did, I was so sick I almost had to call my parents to say <i>guys, you need to take me to hospital</i>. Then I fell asleep instead. Suffice to say, it wasn't an enjoyable experience. This year, though, for one day the furthest I'm going to venture is to my kitchen (I can see it from my bed if the door is open). I'll surround myself with books, and coffee, and my Netflix queue (are Netflix queues still a thing?) and <i>force</i> myself, for once in my life, to just relax. I won't care if it's raining, or the trains are delayed, or feel guilty about all the other things I should-be-doing. I'm going to <i>nest</i>, and it's going to be glorious.<br />
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<b><i>20. Gamble. Win. </i></b><br />
Do I mean that in a bet-money-at-a-casino sense, or a bet-your-guts-and-heart-on-something one? Both, probably.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Third and final part coming this week!</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 1 - <a href="http://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/30-before-30-part-1.html" target="_blank">Here.</a></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 3 - <a href="http://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/30-before-30-part-3.html" target="_blank">Here.</a></span></i><br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-43793092311831145072017-10-07T02:55:00.002-07:002018-02-04T01:22:32.150-08:0030 before 30. (Part 1).<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilZOII8CSvEvocOJ2joKOOyNngWBFLK8VA0F-x0rKkq3ZmjOYiJcZbLZZL48cBcZ_s7r2TmN5fZt8NY-AMFvndF8XmKH5mZ17NTfDomr5K_PHfsISb3JrJHp4M3IM5BE2HzbyA2KWu0w-S/s1600/20882784_502801656951_2615262345726552241_n+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilZOII8CSvEvocOJ2joKOOyNngWBFLK8VA0F-x0rKkq3ZmjOYiJcZbLZZL48cBcZ_s7r2TmN5fZt8NY-AMFvndF8XmKH5mZ17NTfDomr5K_PHfsISb3JrJHp4M3IM5BE2HzbyA2KWu0w-S/s320/20882784_502801656951_2615262345726552241_n+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I got a text the day after my 29th birthday that said "What's on your 30 before 30 bucket list" (exactly like that. No question mark. Somehow I was so taken with the idea, though, that it didn't even bother me). A few of my friends had done a 30-before-30, and while I hadn't really thought about it before, I read that text walking down the Kings Road in search of red lipstick, birthday shopping fever still deep in my bones, and knew I wanted to get on board. The idea to blog it followed pretty quickly; if it was a list of goals rather than experiences, to write here more frequently and personally would be near the top, so it made sense to share whatever the bucket list would become.</div>
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What follows are 30 experiences I want to engineer for myself in the next 364 days. The list itself is going to be split in to three parts - not thematically, more because I want to give my reasons and to do all 30 at once would be epic in a way I don't think is appealing! As I go through them, I'll be writing up the particularly interesting ones, and instagramming the whole lot with the hashtag #Avas30before30. I'd love to have you all along for the ride.<br />
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So here goes. Part 1 of the list, in no particular order.<br />
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<b><i>1. Write in New York</i></b><br />
I've spent, proportionately to other cities, quite a lot of time in the one they say never sleeps (I find that it definitely does, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places). I've holidayed there a lot, once went twice in 3 weeks for producing work, was summoned to talk about the show-that-never-was from a penthouse overlooking New Jersey, and spent a Summer there with my musical The 8th Fold. By that time, though, my work was long since finished (for that version at least) so the one thing I've never done in my favourite place in the world is write anything of any significance. Scribblings on hotel paper, of course. The Instagram caption on my first selfie, and countless emails, and an accidental essay about Hamilton, but I've never been just... <i>writing</i>. This year I want to spend time in the coffee shops, and hotel bars, and even wandering through Soho, 'cause not all writing happens when words hit the paper. I want a week where I can spend the days working, and the nights drinking cocktails and hitting up Broadway. I think in the story-of-Ava, this reads like the most <i>obvious</i> cliche, which makes the fact that it's never actually happened even more strange. It is long since time.<br />
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<b><i>2. Do a full forward fold with straight legs.</i></b><br />
I am not a bendy person. A lot of the other 30-before-30 lists I looked at had <i>find your 'thing' in exercise</i> as one of the goals, and I'm pretty lucky that I did that at 28 when I <a href="https://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/something-like-peace-or-my-love-affair.html" target="_blank">got back in to yoga.</a> I knew I wanted a yoga-thing on here, and while I'm ambitious, I'm not stupid... it was never going to be a headstand or that one where your legs look like a broken barbie because they're behind your head at such an unnatural angle. I'm keeping it simple but personally challenging with a full, feet together, legs straight, forward fold. I can't remember ever being able to touch my toes, and I want to. While that's the specific, the broader goal here is to keep getting better at a form of exercise I truly love, make it to classes more regularly, and never call it 'my practice' because that's cringe. Sorry.<br />
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<b><i>3. Learn to bake Macarons.</i></b><br />
Because it means I get to eat more Macarons.<br />
(<i>But seriously, everyone tells me they're really difficult. I'm a good cook but a pretty terrible baker (except bread. I kill it at bread) so a challenge and learning to make my favourite sweet treat all in one seemed like a good idea. I've been awake since 7am googling methods. I'm going to buy a Macaron mould this afternoon. Don't say I'm not taking this seriously).</i><br />
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<i><b>4. Find a cause. Talk about it.</b></i><br />
This one comes with a little bit of a guilt-hangover from the past year. I'm a huge advocate for speaking out about the things that ignite your passion, and in 2017 for me that was Jeremy Corbyn. And I <i>did not do enough</i>. I'm not saying I believe my voice would have necessarily made a difference. I definitely didn't play down my allegiance, and I made a successful and conscious effort to bring my personal politics in to my social media for the first time, but when general election day rolled around I felt certain I could have done more. I think if you believe in something; a person; a cause, you owe it to that thing but mostly to yourself and your integrity to champion it <i>out loud</i>. To add yourself to that narrative; to know you did everything you could for the thing you thought was right. So this year, I'm going to find a cause, and talk about it. And when I say find, it is already found, and when I say cause, it's Jeremy Corbyn. Just so we're clear.<br />
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<b><i>5. Kitten!</i></b><br />
Duh.<br />
<i>(Even if it does mean hiding her from my landlady for a little while).</i><br />
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<i><b>6. See a new piece of immersive theatre in another country.</b></i><br />
So not Sleep No More in New York. (But also probably, in addition, Sleep No More in New York).<br />
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<b><i>7. Produce a show.</i></b><br />
I don't really do this anymore, by which I mean... I don't at all. There was a time, though, when producing theatre was my one true ride-or-die career love, and that feels a bit unfinished. This year I'd <i>love</i> to produce a concert, like we used to when theatre was just all my friends, fumbling our way through, having a laugh and mostly getting it right. As for what (or who), there's this one artist on my dream-list who <i>juuuust</i> managed to elude me last time around. That would be nice.<br />
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<b><i>8. Finish The West Wing.</i></b><br />
A masterclass in writing, makes complicated politics ridiculously accessible 'cause the characters are so well created, Donna Moss is my favourite fictional woman, and yet I've been stuck somewhere in the middle of season 4 for... literally years. I want to carry on; to earn that Josh & Donna moment I've seen over and over on Youtube, to get to the most perfect closing line in TV I've ever heard. Make time for the things that make you happy, even if they are only old TV shows.<br />
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<b><i>9. Cook 30 new recipes.</i></b><br />
Cooking something gorgeous with a podcast in my ears is often one of my favourite parts of the day. <i>I love cooking, </i>but while my repertoire is varied it's relatively small and I'm bored of it. This year I want to try 30 new recipes. That's the only criteria. (Remind me one day to tell you about the time I used an entire pot of Oregano in 24 hours... <i>making up sauces. </i>Cooking is creating too, isn't it?)<br />
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<b><i>10. A solo weekend.</i></b><br />
Escaping London with people I love is one of my favourite things in the world. Fresher air, the fact that it's somehow acceptable to open a bottle of wine at lunch time, ideally some sea views... what's not to love. That said, I also enjoy my own company, especially when I'm writing (or at least trying to), and the last time I got away alone was in 2014 (I came back with an <i>excellent</i> first draft of an entire script from a single weekend. It works for me). This year I want a solo weekend in someone else's gorgeous house to put down some words in a way I never do in London. I'm firing up Air B'n'B as we speak.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 2 coming in the next few days. Comment below with your own 30-before-30 lists, ideas, and general musings! Thanks Liam for the idea! </span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Part 2 - <a href="https://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/30-before-30-part-2.html" target="_blank">Here.</a></span></i><br />
<i>Part 3 - <a href="http://avaeldred.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/30-before-30-part-3.html" target="_blank">Here.</a></i><br />
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<i><br /></i>Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-49764757920365867392017-10-01T02:10:00.002-07:002017-10-01T02:18:57.784-07:0028.<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1">When I woke up to 28, my hair still smelled of New York. The fact that somehow the scent of Sleep No More at 2am; Bath and Body Works candles; aeroplane gin and Victoria’s Secret perfume that were snapshots of my favourite city could still be tangled around my shoulders half a world away seemed like a good omen.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">In some ways, most ways, almost all ways, I had never been happier. I went to work every day in a job I loved that paid me well. The company I kept fulfilled me (exhilarated me), and I was 2 months from starting rehearsals for a show I wrote that was supposed to be the <i>beginning of it all</i>. “28 will be formative”, the last weeks of 27 had promised, and in my childhood bed on the morning of my birthday, I had rarely believed it more.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Well.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">It has certainly been that.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">*</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">There are contracts both of the law and of the heart which mean I’ll never talk what happened at the end of 2016 in more detail than this; I said goodbye to a person I loved very much in November (he’s not dead, don’t worry. Just… eras end, don’t they?). In December, with six days to go, I was forced to withdraw from the show. In January my theatre, which was built around me two years earlier, which I had loved as it grew and changed with us, was torn down.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Like the ground being ripped from beneath my feet. Like someone turned the lights out when as far as all the revellers knew, the party wasn’t over. Like the clock stopped in the middle of a moment; tick, and then the tock just never came. Like somebody remembered you’re only meant to stay in the port; the haven; the comfort until the storm passes, but got the timing so spectacularly wrong. Like all of those crap cliches that exist for a reason.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Any one of those things alone, I probably would have been fine. All three? Well the port was gone, and I was in no state to dance in the rain.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Instead I drank gin in bed before 5pm, and ate scones with clotted cream for breakfast, and wore fur capes to dinner dates which I thought made me look <i>breezy</i> and <i>fine with it</i> but which my friends have told me since made me look unhinged. Brilliant. It never rains but it pours.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In any endeavour such as this, there comes a time when you have to decide how honest you’re going to be; which parts stay protected, which parts you’re ready to give over to somebody else to interpret. That’s the problem with telling stories; once you do, there is a part of that memory that will never belong to you again. You can’t choose how they’ll be interpreted. You tell it exactly as it happened, and to anyone who listens it becomes a completely different tale. There are some people, and moments, from the last 12 months, who wouldn’t withstand that sort of scrutiny. For the most part though, the lesson I learned from 28 is to care less. All of which is to say, I may as well lay it bare:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was the worst year I’ve had.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I don’t mean to be sensationalist. We’re all entirely aware that this post is about to turn around and focus on the good parts; the lessons; the 29-of-it-all, right?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Good.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">But before that there are some truths to be told:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I don’t know how to talk about 28 without talking about how I learned the transience of fairweather friendship. How <i>not-knowing-what-to-say </i>is a very different thing to <i>not-wanting-to-say-anything</i>. How the sad truth of it is that sometimes you can’t spot the people who only want to know you when things are good until it all goes wrong and they’re nowhere to be seen.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I don’t know how-not-to reference that there are people I thought would be part of my life forever who I now understand will not. How sometimes, still, there are things I laugh at that only one other person in the world would find funny, and on the list of people-I-can’t-just-call-anymore, their name comes first.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Or how I’ve known for a while that right now, I don’t want to write plays. How I was sure of that long before the industry was, and long before I stopped. How I tried freelance life; full-time-writer life, and hated it so much that some mornings I lay in bed and stared at my wall for hours on end; how I don’t know what that means for me as a theatre writer right now. To wait and see goes entirely against my nature. I’m going to have to wait and see.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">That’s not to say there haven’t been wonderful parts, of course. It’s not to say I haven’t fought to grab on to every bit of good, and mostly succeeded. My core group of best friends (a tier, not a person) has never been stronger. I’ve fallen in deep platonic love with people I’ve known for years and only really <i>discovered</i> these past 12 months; with people I met only in 2017 who quickly became important. I’m alright. I’m good.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I definitely learned a lot. This is that part:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Every year for the past three at least, it has been my new years resolution to give as much energy to my personal life as I do my professional. I’ve failed every time, which probably goes without saying. What I’ve learned this year, though, is that <b><i>we’re never doing as badly as we think we are.</i></b> To say I failed is not entirely true, because I truly tried, and sometimes that is enough. I’m not a horrible person. I give a lot of love. I get it wrong sometimes, and I know and acknowledge that, but the beauty is that then I get to try again, and take the good bits with me. That doesn’t mean I won’t invent more ways to fuck up. I will and I do, and if you’re reading this you know that, ‘cause I can guarantee you do it too. But those moments make good brunch stories, if we own them and carry on. I’m doing alright. We’re all doing alright.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><i>Sometimes you need someone to remind you what you’re good at</i></b>. I spent two and a half years writing to such a specific voice that I forgot what mine sounded like. I barely produced a creative word that wasn’t on that show. A truth that not many writers admit (unless you ask and then they <i>all</i> do) is that writing to commission can absolutely kill your creativity. I’m saying that in public because I wish someone had told me it was normal. It has been a downfall and a blessing that everything I write sounds so <i>very</i> like me, and this Summer I decided it was high time I rediscovered how to do that (<i>and it is like a muscle. You just have to start using it again), </i>so I signed up to Laura Jane Williams’ course <i>Don’t be a writer, be a storyteller. </i>Honestly, I didn’t go in thinking I had a lot to learn; I was doing it so someone properly ingrained in the industry could tell me what was working, where my strengths <i>really</i> were, how to do more of that. Six weeks of set assignments, and deadlines, and <i>writing it out</i>, and I was like “<i>Yeah. That worked. I’m back”</i>. And as is often the case in these situations, I had so much more to learn than I knew. The lesson here is basic: Remember what you love. Remember what you’re good at. </span><span class="s2"><i>If those are the same thing, you're so lucky</i></span><span class="s1">. Don't take that for granted. Find the people who can teach you to be better, let them teach you, then do it as much as you can. <i>Its a muscle</i>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Buy the lipstick. Don’t try and budget with cheap skincare because it won’t work and you’ll end up trying four just to find the best, which will cost more than the expensive pot of cream you wanted in the first place. <b><i>Skin is the biggest organ and should be respected as such</i>. </b>There was a time this year where my skin was so bad I cried pretty often, and I just hadn’t identified it as a priority. That’s the lesson: know the things that are non-negotiable; the things you absolutely <i>need</i> to stay happy. I should have stopped drinking wine to afford the moisturiser, walked places instead of getting a tube, did what it took. It sounds shallow, but healthy skin and nice lipstick is one of my needs, it seems. Looking good makes me feel good. Good to know. (I came out of that dark-skin-time when I discovered The Ordinary, a truly incredible brand selling very affordable skincare that seriously works and makes you feel like you’re doing a science experiment on your own face, which is obviously a really great thing).</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The older I've got, the more seriously I feel like I'm taken. As a woman in theatre (and quite a young woman relative to the work I’ve done), there's a much larger conversation to be had around that, but the crux of it is that I think a lot about the way I’m portrayed, and the reasons why as I get older, everything feels just a little bit easier. Of course there are some outside factors at play (like I said, another conversation), but the most defining factor <i>for sure </i>is that <b><i>the older I get, the better I know myself</i></b>. You don’t have to say a word. People can see that. I know I'm good at what I do, and I make no apologies. I’ve realised that doesn’t mean everyone will be on board; what I do won't work for some people, and that is <i>fine</i>. As a writer and in my day job, as a friend and an acquaintance and a colleague and a kiss in the dark and a long-time-love, sometimes <i>I won’t work</i>. I think my favourite lesson from 28 is knowing <i>that’s</i> <i>not on me. </i>The older I get, the less <i>I</i> want to change anything. So I won’t. I call that a win.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So what, then, am I taking forward, in to the last year of a decade where <i>so much happened</i> (obviously. 10 years is a long time)? What am I telling Ava-at-29, four days away just <i>waiting</i> to begin?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><i>Be scared, and do it anyway.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Trust that sometimes things feel easy <i>because they’re easy</i>. Let them be easy.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Your body has never been healthier, which is not to say thinner. Do more yoga, drink more water, stay this strong. It’s good, innit?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Realise that settling is not the same as feeling comfortable. <i>Never</i> settle. <i>Always</i> try to make sure you’re comfortable.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Write more blogs. Even when you feel like nobody is reading them. One day <i>a lot</i> of people will be reading them (and I can never thank Derren Brown enough for that), and you want a legacy.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Everything won’t be fine. Sometimes things will be shit and that's important too. Keep going, though. Everything will be <i>wonderful.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>You got this.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">See you later, 28. You’ve been… so many things.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">(Oh, and the fur cape? The one that made me look unhinged? I got it out from under my bed this week, and started wearing it again. Whatever my friends say, I know it looks hot).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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(<i>Photo by Luke Oliver, my favourite travel buddy and seriously great photographer).</i></div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-19588281074693174372017-09-17T02:39:00.000-07:002017-09-17T02:42:41.838-07:00Living Memories: On Derren Brown's Underground, and the humanity in magic.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was little, I wanted to be an illusionist.<br />
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I had a deck of marked cards that made me look just the right side of mediocre until I had to refer to the book mid-trick to remember what each marking actually <i>meant</i>, and when David Blaine hung in a box over the Thames for 44 days (or however long), a group of us from school spent most afternoons on the grass beneath, half fascinated by this man who had come to our corner of town and wanting to see what we were missing, and half just for something to do. I'd always had an interest in mystery and the way magicians told a story, but had never come across someone who was working with the exact blend of dark storytelling, showmanship and magic with <i>meaning</i> that I didn't even know I was craving. I assumed, like the times I wanted to be a pop star and run my own horse riding school, I'd forget all about illusion soon enough. I didn't love it <i>that</i> much.<br />
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Then Derren Brown shot himself in the head on my birthday and I was <i>in</i>.<br />
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I won't work backwards through his career here because it is long and illustrious and I could never make him sound as completely compelling as he is. A few highlights, then:<br />
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Derren Brown once stuck my Mum to the sofa. Through a TV screen. She couldn't stand up. His series of event magic (a name I just made up, mostly because it was called The Events) came at a time when my family were rarely all in the house at the same time, particularly on a Friday night. But for as long as that lasted, we were. Every week.<br />
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By the time he tried to make a member of the public jump off a roof (no, I'm not joking) we lived in a few different houses, but shout-texted each other throughout. That the man was a genius was something we could all agree on. Watching him on TV made me very happy.<br />
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The first time I saw him live, during his Enigma tour, the last two seats in the highest balcony at the New Wimbledon Theatre, he completely blew my mind.<br />
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I've seen almost every show Derren has done since then (as in <i>one performance of, </i>not literally every show. That would be insane. It might also ruin it), so when I was invited to the opening night of Underground, his Greatest Hits, as it were, currently playing at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End, I didn't even check my diary. Anything else could be rescheduled. I couldn't wait.<br />
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To talk about a Derren Brown show on the internet is not always an easy thing. We who have been are the initiated, you see. We know things now; we've seen things, and we made a promise not to tell. It's a Secret. Capital S.<br />
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Anyway, I'm going to try.<br />
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Underground is an amalgamation of some of Derren's earlier live shows (and it seemed to be the <i>earlier</i> of the earlier, from what I can remember of the order the shows came, which was an absolute treat). Knowing his work as I do, and having had years since to think about some of these tricks, there are things I have worked out; things I've been told about since seeing them originally, that I thought might diminish my wonder a little. I sort of know the signs to look out for. Someone told me (<i>completely</i> unsolicited) how he does the thing (well one of the things) that overarches the whole show; the big finish. Still, it remains my absolute favourite 'trick' I've ever seen.<br />
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On the subject, though, of knowing how it's done... I don't want to. Not even a little, really. I say I do, and I flirt with the idea, and think, and discuss, and get probably very close. And then I'll retreat. It would be easy to assume my love of magic is an inherent thirst for knowledge, or wanting to know <i>how things work</i>, but I would rather stay in the dark. The thrill is in being close enough to touch the answer... and not reaching out. I want someone to prove I can still be wowed by it. I want there to be things I don't know the answers to.<br />
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There is a trick in Underground I have thought about often since I first saw it performed in Enigma (and a lot of the show comes from Enigma, which is such a <i>huge</i> bonus. To see some of that material performed again was the greatest joy). Without giving too much away, through a story about his own life Derren gives a total stranger in the audience a connection with their past, and with the idea of legacy, and the things we inherit, and the people that make us who we are. Both times I've seen it, the woman he chose has cried, overwhelmed with nostalgia and grief and joy. It's a moment of real theatrical sorcery.<br />
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If I think about it logically, I know it isn't real. But does that logic hold more weight than the reaction of a human being, pulled from their seat and given a personal living memory to hold on to? Not even close. Because this, beyond almost anything else, is a show about humanity. It relies so heavily on the audience being on side; wanting to be <i>moved</i>, that their reactions are as much as part of the show as anything Derren himself is doing.<br />
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It must be like walking a tightrope; a knife edge. He must have contingencies, but when humans are so unpredictable even the contingencies would have to have contingencies to come anywhere close to being completely secure. Every second is a risk, and therein lies the real magic.<br />
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If you want to figure out how he does it, you probably can. He makes no pretence at being psychic; this is showmanship and misdirection and the ability to read a person down to a twitch. He will pick up on the way you breathe, the way you move your eyes. It isn't magic as we imagine it at all, it is extraordinary intelligence.<br />
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Or maybe that's what he wants us to think. Maybe the beauty is that we're all doing that thing that humans do, where we think we've cracked it; worked out what nobody else seems to be able to, when we're being double crossed right until the end. We walk away feeling clever; he walks away knowing that even if we're close, we're never <i>quite</i> going to get there.<br />
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I wonder as I write this if it has ever gone truly wrong. I've never heard of it happening. I can only assume it has not.<br />
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Underground is as much of a masterpiece as I knew it would be. It would be naive not to refer to the way it has been written and directed; none of this comes out of his head as he's saying it. Every word, move, probably breath, is scripted and rehearsed and perfectly timed, and that's even more of a skill than if he was improvising the whole thing. It is theatre in the purest sense; intense and moving and <i>living</i>.<br />
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I can't keep a Secret, but I will, this once. You've got to see it for yourself.<br />
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I'd love to take my Mum to Underground, and let Derren at her in the flesh. If he could stick her to the sofa through a TV screen, I can only imagine what he could do in a pretty intimate theatre.<br />
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The cards were in my parents house for a long time. I lost the book, which rendered them almost entirely useless.<br />
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It's 11pm on a Saturday night. I'm about to press play on Enigma for probably the 10th time since it's release.<br />
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I didn't become an illusionist. I became a writer instead, which in so many ways is the same thing.<br />
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<i>Almost everything Derren has done is available on 4oD in the UK. It's well worth a cosy Sunday of your time.</i><br />
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<i>Before anyone zooms in and sees my it says Marketing Guest, let's just disclaim. I did not pay for my ticket, but nobody asked me to write this. I was there as a friend's +1, not in any official capacity. I wish. </i>Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-65561666876014360182017-09-16T05:51:00.001-07:002017-09-16T05:51:08.250-07:00Something Like Peace (Or, My love affair with hot yoga).<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">My love affair with hot yoga began the way many of my love affairs begin. That is to say it was harder than expected, I wavered for a long time between persevering and the self-preservation that comes with walking away, told all my friends it was brutal but even though I was terrible I was sort of maybe getting in to it, then one day realised I was absolutely smitten.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">For a long time, I believed that yoga teachers were liars who hated me. What other reason could there possibly be for their constant insistence that contorting my body in to shapes that left my abs so sore I couldn’t laugh for days was fulfilling, or fun? I found no peace in sun salutations, no strength in warrior pose, and couldn’t touch my toes (I still can’t). My early relationship with yoga was less than harmonious, and I was fine with that. I was a runner. I ran away from yoga, and kept in shape by sprinting laps of Peckham Rye instead.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The yoga classes of my teens were focused almost entirely on relaxation. They were meditative in a way I found very hard to get on board with; I’m a person who enjoys thinking, and being told to stop did not come naturally. When I was told to let go; to give myself over, it wasn't that I couldn’t. More that I couldn’t see why I would want to. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact I was being constantly shown up by my own mother. That woman can bend. (Why <i>are</i> Mum’s so good at yoga?!)</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I fell back in to the <i>practice</i> (eww) early this year, bloated from a Christmas of being almost constantly Champagne drunk and a January of eating scones for breakfast. I needed to sweat it out quickly, and found a studio in Crystal Palace that seemed to be offering the chance to do just that. (This is not a review or a description of their classes, but it’s called The Yoga Edge and is by far my favourite studio I’ve <i>ever</i> been to). My mindset had changed radically, I knew, but I still wasn’t thrilled by the idea of being told what I should be feeling; where the line between holding on and letting go was drawn; when I should be holding on; when I should be letting go. I was a hopeful cynic, ready to be proved wrong but not expecting it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I was proved wrong.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Nobody told me I had to <i>let go</i>. Nobody told me what I should be feeling. Nobody tried to push my body further than it was ready to go (that’s a lie, one teacher did. I just didn’t go back to her class). The only guidance they gave was how to move; how to breathe; where in your bones you should be feeling it. The rest was up to us.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">And with the effort that was holding my body in a one handed side plank (who knew?!) came the stilling of my mind, at it’s own pace, without any outside instruction at all. And once it was still, it began to open.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The teachers I love most have this way of talking about yoga that sort of feels like they could be talking about life in general. They are funny, and sharp, and encourage us to laugh at ourselves when we fall out of a pose, and say things like “It doesn’t matter what you look like, as long as you <i>feel it” </i>and “The only intention you should set here is to do your best by <i>you”</i>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And “There is such strength in just knowing when to… stop”.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">That one was my favourite.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>There is such strength in just knowing when to stop</i>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Stop holding on to the things that make you crazy. Stop wondering what you could have done for a different ending. Stop pushing your body further than it can go. Stop saying yes to things you don’t want to do. Stop saying no to things you do.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>There is such strength</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The satisfaction in knowing when you’ve reached your edge; knowing where the switch is. That is where letting go comes in.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The hour locked inside a sweatbox quickly became my favourite time of the week. It fixes even the worst of moods, and leaves me feeling virtuous (and my body feeling <i>tight</i>, which I know everyone says is not the point but which is the reason I started and not a benefit I can ignore!). Every week I am amazed, lying on our mats for final relaxation, to hear the buses, and sirens, and sounds of Crystal Palace existing beyond the locked door; to realise they must have been happening all along; that there is no way the past hour has been silent, as if the streets outside recognise the need for peace. It’s simply that we didn’t notice.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">But it isn't all change. I doubt I’ll ever call yoga “playing”, as some teachers do when they’re trying to convince you you’re having fun (by doubt I mean… I will not be doing that). There’s a guy who told every teacher for at least a month it was his first ever class so they all thought he was a genius. There are people who harmonise on Om’s. I know more yummy mummy gossip that I ever knew there <i>was</i> just from laying on my mat before the class starts. I still find most of these people inherently <i>irritating</i>, if I’m honest.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But when the heaters go on and the curtain is drawn, none of that matters. We don't talk, or even pay attention to each other. We lock in to a moment, stand up, and begin. Sometimes glory is quiet. Not quite silent, the sound of the breath a reminder that you’re alive, but quiet all the same.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I got my waist back. I developed a serious workout-wear habit. I wrote the intro to this post laying on the floor over a yoga block. At the beginning of the year I didn’t even know what a yoga block <i>was</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I was wrong. This is for me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In yoga, as in all love affairs, there is strength in admitting that too.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>She is moving in a way that bodies shouldn’t be able to move: bending backwards, twisting one side over the other, and on her face is effort and concentration and sweat.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>The effort is melting away a bit now, but the concentration and sweat are still there as she lowers to her knees and stretches the whole front of her body forward on the sticky mat, and just before her forehead meets the floor, something else joins them on her face. Something like peace.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-3265455820325211602017-09-10T06:05:00.000-07:002017-09-10T06:05:15.179-07:00Golden Castle Town (Or, finding your way back).<div class="p1">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The sun was setting over Washington DC. I was heat tired and could almost feel the freckles on my face, a reminder once the stickiness had dried that the sun had been kissing my skin all Summer. It was August. I’d been carrying a bag almost the size of me for two months, and as I put it in to the boot of the final taxi and climbed in to the back seat, I felt a weight lift, which was surprising because after two months of being untied from anything; free in the purest sense, I didn’t know I was even holding on to it. We pulled the doors closed. The driver asked where to, and one of us said the airport.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We’d gone from East to West and back. We’d fallen in love with cities and states (different ones, all of us). We’d seen Texas at 2am from a Denny’s after laughing harder than I ever had in my life, and Chicago from the bank of the lake, and LA and Salt Lake City and small town Ohio. We had a perfect night out without even entering a bar in New Orleans, and I learned that I could sleep on a train, or a sofa in a hotel lobby, or one night (early morning) in a station waiting room that we’d phoned the Sheriff to come and open for us. (<i>That's the kind of thing you do, when you're 20 and far from home and fearless; you call the sheriff in the middle of the night). </i>I was full to the brim with experience and contentment and an itching to put all this happiness in to practice back in London, back in reality.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We pulled the door closed. I leaned back in the seat. 15 more hours, give or take, suddenly seemed too long to wait.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I want to go home</i>, I thought, and damn, if it wasn't the greatest feeling.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The idea that you have to leave a place to be able to return is not an original one. When I was 19 I read The Alchemist because a boy with the dreamiest accent I’d ever heard told me it would change my life. It didn’t come close, and around the same time I realised that he never would either, but the sentiment that what you’re looking for may appear through a shift of perspective gained only by a temporary shift in location stuck quietly with me. I hated that book.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I had left London to remember why I loved it, although eight years after the fact I’m not sure if that was a retrospective realisation or if I knew all along, but it’s something I’ve returned to often since, although never on the same scale.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Jobs. Friendships, sometimes. Corners of the city, favourite haunts. Writing, in so many forms. When you’re so immersed in anything, it’s easy to forget why you started. To return to the simplicity of the beginning can be almost impossible from somewhere further along the line, where habits have been formed, comfort found in ways that aren’t entirely healthy. I am terrible at letting go, until I... <i>let go</i>. And then comes clarity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">One of the reasons I love music theatre (which is a different thing to musical theatre, I think, although I sometimes wish it wasn’t) is the ways in which, even after all this time, it can still surprise me. Rarely, but sometimes, I’ll still see something, or hear something, that makes me think <i>Woah. I didn’t know musicals could be that</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">There’s a piece called The Lion by a writer/performer called Benjamin Scheuer that did exactly that. It’s ostensibly his life story set to folksy, gentle music, and the whole piece is a thing of real beauty. My favourite song, though, is called Golden Castle Town. It tells the story (and this is the wonder of<i> The Lion</i>. Every song is a fully formed <i>story</i>) of taking some time away (“<i>in a quiet place where time and I slow down, to a cottage in a Golden Castle Town”), </i>to uncurl, rediscover, connect again to the things that make him… him. He swims, and drinks white wine, and tans. Starts to write again. And that’s the thing that let’s him know he’s ok, now. He’s ready to go home.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I can’t remember when I started blogging, the first time. At this point, almost ten years later, there have been a few incarnations. I wrote about musicals, before I worked in musicals. I wrote about living and loving in the London theatre scene. I wrote quite extensively about the things I’ve learned from Gossip Girl, and The West Wing, and Hamilton. I wrote about what it means to be a fan of something. But every time before, I’ve stopped. Through a combination of having nothing new to say, or feeling like nobody was listening, or life getting too crazy, or life not being crazy enough. I’ve been too sad to write, and too happy to find time, and honestly I spent a long time resenting giving away my words for free. Blogging isn’t easy, and feeling like you’re shouting in to a void where there isn’t a place for you loses any appeal pretty quickly. I don’t take artsy photos of my outfits. My instagram grid has no theme to speak of. I barely care what my everyday makeup routine is, so don’t expect anyone else to.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I write essays. They are long, and verbose, and sometimes messy. I take photos on my iPhone, sometimes. Sometimes I don’t include a photo at all. For me, blogging is about the <i>writing of it all</i>. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like there might be a place for that, and for the first time in even longer, I don’t really mind if there isn’t.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Things that happened because I took that trip (<i>the one from the first paragraph, sunset over Washington, cities and states after leaving):</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I came back and re-connected with a person I’d desperately needed space from. We had fought, and screamed at each other, before. We were too close, and we didn’t realise it had stopped working until we’d both gone far too far. We walked along the river, once I was home. I can’t remember the month, but in my mind it was Autumn because I associate that with beginnings. We wrote a musical together, after that. It played in New York. Last month I met a stranger who had seen it, recognised me from just my name.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I came back and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>started working in theatre. I wrote a blog about a show, and the producer saw it and we started talking. It’s been seven years. We never stopped. You know those people you somehow always return to? Because I left and came back, and because I fell in love with a show, and because I started writing, I found one of my closest friends, and my favourite collaborator.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I came back and learned that you can always leave. The risk comes from not knowing if it will ever feel the same, once you return. The risk comes from not knowing if you <i>can </i>return. The joy comes from trusting that sharp niggling feeling that says <i>Oh my god, girl. Do it anyway.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Things that happened because I took that trip:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The thing about home is that it’s transient and permanent all at once. It changes, and it changes back, and sometimes it’s the place that does the shifting, but usually it’s the person.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So a new version of me has come back to <a href="http://likealullaby.com/"><span class="s2">likealullaby.com</span></a>. I am older and more assured and less assured and wiser and less wise. A lot of things have happened that I don’t want to talk about, but the best bit is that a lot of things have happened that I do.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So this is that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KzeCxg-kePk" width="560"></iframe>Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-6810322376438444132017-05-21T05:24:00.002-07:002017-05-21T05:53:46.609-07:00Stories you won't tell forever: What happens when all your plans change direction.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6XJAWc9BjBEpdKH_k3gEUI0WUt3-xKF1cui2LpQ4EM-lDq6t52XUmdBR1llqY548gBKquvVJbC6Vm2jnIf4Vuv_EEBjFVBm-rMaCpQ_fI74OLzYddwZ5QqAvG5T5sTae3B3tu1gcfm-vi/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-05-21+at+13.52.22.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6XJAWc9BjBEpdKH_k3gEUI0WUt3-xKF1cui2LpQ4EM-lDq6t52XUmdBR1llqY548gBKquvVJbC6Vm2jnIf4Vuv_EEBjFVBm-rMaCpQ_fI74OLzYddwZ5QqAvG5T5sTae3B3tu1gcfm-vi/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-05-21+at+13.52.22.png" width="297" /></a></div>
In 2014, through a truly unique combination of luck, sheer audacity, and being in exactly the right place at the right time, I was hired for a job so dreamy I had never even thought to dream it. I was in my mid-20s and working with a living legend in my field. It looked from the outside, so I'm told, that I had sprung from nowhere and slotted right in to an industry where 26 year old girls don't get hired for major productions with only one other musical under their belts. It just doesn't happen and yet it did, very quickly and with no real fanfare. It just... suddenly was. I was lucky. I was happy.</div>
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Turns out those things rarely last forever. 25 months after it began, I withdrew unexpectedly from the project. It broke my damn heart, and it almost definitely saved it too.</div>
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If you came for the story, you're out of luck. I made a promise I intend to keep, and besides, it's a love story. Nobody comes out clean. But I've realised since then that for all the tea and sympathy (except replace tea with Gin) and the kindness of good people, nobody really talks about what happens next. What you actually learn, when all your plans fall if not <i>apart</i> then in a completely different direction. What can we actually take from this? Well I can't speak for anyone else, so let's do a case study.</div>
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Test subject: Me.</div>
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<b></b><a href="http://lifeandmusicals.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/stories-you-wont-tell-forever-what_21.html">Read More.</a></div>
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<b>1. You have to feel it.</b></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">I read this amazing quote which I'm about to paraphrase the hell out of, because it was a while ago and I can't remember where I saw it. It went something along these lines: "</span><i style="text-align: justify;">Recovery takes as long as it takes. Don't borrow from the beginning, because you'll only pay for it at the end". </i><span style="text-align: justify;">It's true. I wish somebody had told me that. Pretending you're alright on the second day will only mean that one Friday morning in the third month you'll have to do your makeup twice, because you cried it all off the first time. Sometimes it feels never-ending, and trying to force the end only makes that gremlin of self-pity stronger. Not a cute Gremlin, either. I'm talking once the water touches them and they turn slimey and mean.</span><br />
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And the thing is, you do get to recover. It's an ending just like any other; a breakup of sorts, except instead of a person you're breaking up with a part of your identity (and in this case a British institution. Sort of. So that's intense). You know when you've been sick, and spent a few days wrapped up on the sofa, then finally you're brave enough to go back outside? You put your foot on the hard ground, and you're walking just like you always do, but somehow the soles of your feet feel different? It's like that. Like something has changed, and you're feeling it physically. Everything seems loud and shocking and for the first few steps it's like you're walking on air. Then the headache creeps back in. Your energy starts to wane. Your footsteps are just footsteps again, and you know you did the right thing but it's time to accept now that for a little while, at least, it's going to hurt. Let it. The satisfaction when you're finally feeling real peace instead of fake surface level contentment is worth it.</div>
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<b>2. Recovery looks different every day.</b></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">It was Christmas, so luckily I could get away with being somewhere on the way to Champagne drunk at pretty much all times without any raised eyebrows. At first, my sadness looked pretty typical in that respect: carbs and wine for dinner, then a full face of makeup and off to a party where I would smile vaguely and answer with anecdotes that happened months before. </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Everything's fine. Yeah I think 2017 is going to be great</i><span style="text-align: justify;">. It was exhausting. That transformed, luckily, in to a monogamous relationship with a hot yoga studio, where I would go as often as my legs would let me to sweat it out, bend unexpectedly like in that song from Beauty and the Beast, and make some attempt at getting back my waist (lost to the afore mentioned carbs and wine). That was far healthier in almost every way, and the exhaustion that came with it was endlessly more satisfying. The thing they don't tell you though, when they say "</span><i style="text-align: justify;">Leave it all on the mat"</i><span style="text-align: justify;">? If you're 'on the mat' 5 times a week, eventually you'll just be surrounded by all the demons you left there the night before. I return to point 1. Don't </span><i style="text-align: justify;">leave it all</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> anywhere. Feel it. Then notice how much easier it is to do a half-pigeon, or whatever, once it's all gone. What you need to do to get through it might change on a daily basis. It's like they say </span><i style="text-align: justify;">you cant step in the same river twice</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> (and yes, by "they" I mean Pocahontas); it's an ebb and flow kind of thing, and some days you'll need the wine and some days you'll need the hardest variations of the hardest stretches. Don't waste your time trying to predict how you're going to feel tomorrow. You can't. You will be blindsided, 'cause that's what happens when you fall out of love.</span><br />
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<b>3. People will crawl out of the woodwork.</b></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">People you haven't spoken to in years, who want to be the ones to tell the story. (You can usually spot them by the way they don't even pretend they're here for anything but the details. Which to be fair is at least honest). You don't owe them anything. </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Please don't tell them anything because you're looking for cheap sympathy. Trust me, you don't need cheap sympathy.</i><br />
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<b>4. People will crawl out of the woodwork.</b></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Does woodwork... work when the people crawling out are wonderful? Old friends just wanting to check in, who never (ever) ask for the story. Sort-of-strangers who become new friends 'cause there was an immediate understanding that the basis of so many good friendships is looking after each other. Just making sure the other is alright. For that, social media was an unexpected silver lining. I said very little and what came back was a lot of warmth, and virtual hand-holding, and love. This is where the good comes in. These people? When all the hard stuff stops mattering, you get to keep them. This is not a clutching-at-straws kind of blue sky. It's a real life sunny Sunday's by the river one. The best kind.</span><br />
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<b>5. And people will disappear.</b></div>
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Maybe the people you thought were your friends are not your friends. That's ok. Better to know, right? You'll understand that they don't know what to say, 'cause you don't either. You'll forgive them, but they don't get to come back when things get good again. I didn't really remember, before, that some people only want to be around when things are going well. I choose to see that as lucky rather than naive. Lucky that things had been good enough for long enough that I managed to forget. Lucky that for the most part, the kind of people I surround myself with are the kind who stay.</div>
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<b>6. But the ones you <i>know</i> are gonna be there?</b></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">They will </span><b style="text-align: justify;"><i><u>be. there.</u></i></b><br />
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(When I think back on all of this, the first thing I'll remember, always, is how close it made me to those people. I deserve nice things, and they are the nicest things).</div>
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<b>7. You will remember who you are.</b></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Ugh. Cheesy. True. In the weeks and months that followed Day Zero (thats a thing I decided to start calling it just now), things started happening that hadn't for a while. I found myself singing Disney songs while I was washing up. It wasn't until I gave my neighbours a gala concert performance through the walls of Tapestry (album, not song. Twice. Back to back) that I realised it had been a while since I really sang. I remembered I love running, and started doing it daily. I remembered I hate running and sometimes endorphins are misleading. I stopped. I felt more physically liberated and alive than I had in ages. (Kind of glowing too, actually. A friend said to me "heartbreak chic is really working for you" and y'know what? It was). I hadn't really written anything </span><i style="text-align: justify;">else</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> for two years. Short story ideas came to me on the Victoria line platform at Highbury & Islington. I wrote about nine very short plays. (I wrote a ninety minute one too).</span><br />
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I still sometimes find myself seeking creative permission for things that are all mine, 'cause for such a long time everything that came out of my brain and hit a page was subject to constant scrutiny. But I don't need to seek permission. I never did. (Also nobody is giving it to me 'cause that's not how the world works. For people to listen, artistically anyway, you have to be saying something. You can't afford to wait for their approval). Most of the time now, I remember that. I was fierce before circumstance made me doubt myself. It's how I came upon said circumstance in the first place. I had very few self-imposed limits, and I had to remember (am still having to remember) how to get that back; that those walls that keep me from going after what I want aren't solid. It's like a paper house. Just blow on it and it'll come crashing down. It's like a looking glass. You can walk right through.</div>
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<b>8. Things to note.</b></div>
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You're gonna love something more than you ever loved this. There are so many happy moments coming; there are so many happy moments even in the hard ones. You will succeed in ways you haven't thought to dream yet. (I will probably write another musical).</div>
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<b>9. There are some stories you will tell forever.</b></div>
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The kind that define you. That you keep coming back to as a reference point for who you are, and the things that made you. I think it's pretty cool to be shaped by these stories. To let them sharpen the edges (or soften them). To show you what you can do next, and teach you that you get to decide. Do you know the coolest thing, though? These reference points; character shapers; stories you'll tell forever? You get to choose what they are. And it may not feel like it now, but I promise you. This doesn't have to be one of them.</div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8592927537779133283.post-79816521557865868972017-05-20T12:38:00.000-07:002017-05-21T02:19:33.874-07:00A Spring Awakening.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAyWOdk0dykT9Yw4JuyLp0EwvE7A6_mm2eODGcBPTU9royGJXGLjnp7tulBx8A6a5vVDdo5UxR-WQ-G06h81rxlrdZV4nfWvJqg6tgBGIvd5bNAGATNreOMHDwrSLVUmb7T2N2zEyKIR1/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-05-20+at+20.31.01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAyWOdk0dykT9Yw4JuyLp0EwvE7A6_mm2eODGcBPTU9royGJXGLjnp7tulBx8A6a5vVDdo5UxR-WQ-G06h81rxlrdZV4nfWvJqg6tgBGIvd5bNAGATNreOMHDwrSLVUmb7T2N2zEyKIR1/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-05-20+at+20.31.01.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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I think it is important, every now and then, to take stock of the things that you are doing and why.<br />
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To give yourself permission to change your mind. To understand that the reasoning behind a decision that once made sense can change, and that there may come a time when you find a way to talk about the things you never have.</div>
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I stopped blogging a while ago because I didn't think there was a place on the internet for the things I wanted to say. </div>
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Guess what?</div>
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I changed my mind.</div>
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Let's talk. </div>
Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03266605164441642795noreply@blogger.com0