Dispatches from Lockdown - Week Twelve

The three month mark is approaching from the time when the UK first entered lockdown. Restrictions are starting to ease and when I head out to the local high street, you would think that collective amnesia has descended, given the mass disregard for social distancing. It's as if some have forgotten that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic caused by a virus that has no cure. The UK death toll continues to rise, the 'official' figure hovering somewhere between forty to sixty thousand, depending on which news source you believe. Government incompetence is staggering, causing a behavioral free-for-all socially because no-one trusts or listens to them anymore. International commentary derides the UK for entering lock down too late and now exiting too early.

I agree.

However, whilst the first wave of infection was out of our control, the second wave isn't. People know what they can do to try and minimise infections but whether they choose to or not is another matter. So I think the UK will have the second wave of it's choosing. 

The things I have missed over the last three months have been surprising. Or not. I didn't think swimming would rank in my top ten list of missing but I'm not surprised that small talk features on the not-missed list. What surprises me the most is how much of the London lifestyle I don't miss. At all. 

Instead I miss the sea. Breathing air that smells a bit burnt, tinged with the scent of eucalyptus. Raucous birdsong and a sky that makes you mute. I miss the edges. I miss feeling rubbed raw by nature.

A Blurry Picture of a Big Sky

I've heard many comment about when things will return to normal but I don't see how you can live through something like this and not have it change you.

Or maybe it's not change at all. Maybe it's just a reminder of what it is you valued all along.

I guess we'll see. 

Space Invaders

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away (circa anytime before Mar 20, 2020), the Husband complained often about my walking style, especially if he was behind me trying to follow my lead.

You don't walk in a logical fashion, he moaned for the umpteenth time.You swerve all over the place. You walk like you're being followed, like you're trying to shake someone off.

Draw what conclusions you will but I didn't point out that the only person following me, was him.

He's right though. When I walk through a crowd of people, I like to pretend that I am in a video game (eighties arcade style) with the aim of avoiding all moving targets (bumping into other people) whilst getting to my destination as quickly as possible.

Oldie but a goodie

It hones your kinaesthetic sense* and makes walking through a crowd really fun. It's even better with headphones on as then you have a soundtrack. I have been doing this a long time.

Unfortunately, due to lock down I have not walked through a crowd for awhile.** Still, I have  ventured out each day for my government mandated exercise quota. In the early days, I ran or walked on the footpaths, just as I had done pre-Covid and if I came across another soul, we would do an awkward dance of denial; manifesting a duet between opposed magnets, trying to keep as much air as possible between our bodies. But we would both be on that footpath, our body movements institutionalised by the fear of being run over by cars.  A few weeks later, this changed as the roads became quiet and pedestrians, runners and cyclists reclaimed the streets.

The freedom to run, walk, cycle down the middle of the road, for the most part unhindered by traffic has been one of the unexpected highlights of lock down.

My daily outings into the world made me notice that people generally fell into two groups.The first were courteous and diligent about social distancing. These are the people who would spot you from afar and if they could, would cross the road or pause to let you go first. Basically move in such a way  so you would not get too close to one another.

Not so the second group. In this Dante's circle are the mobile phone users, looking down at their screens whilst walking, with zero concern about anyone else in the vicinity. Sprawling families who act as if they are on a country ramble, meandering along, taking up the full breadth of a walkway so no-one else can get past. Joggers who spit. Joggers who can't deviate from 'their route' even if this means brushing right up past you. Pedestrians who mustn't have studied metrics at school, mistaking two centimeters for two meters.

I also noticed that the kinaesthetic sense is sorely lacking in many people. I suppose this because it is not something you wouldn't  need to use regularly unless you play team sports or perform in some sort of physical ensemble. But perhaps by the end of this, we will all have finely attuned senses of where others are in relation to ourselves. Let's hope.

I also noticed that the walking style needed in lock down was something I was born for! My swerve-duck-dodge walk is in vogue. The only difference is that there is now a two- metre radius around each moving target.

I guess for all of us, there comes a time in life where your weird quirks or odd habits come into their own.

If only my Husband could see me now (he can't because I left him for dust)


*my definition of this is the awareness of one's bodily movements within space in relation to the environment

**apart from the supermarket where social distancing seems to have been abandoned

Constant Craving

We are entering Week 4 of lock down in London and the weekend weather has been kind, giving us sun and light in place of muted grey and drizzle. BBQs and sunglasses have replaced jumpers and socks. People are out sunbathing while others are dying.

It's very odd.

Our household, for now, is free of illness and so I have been reading in the sun. Newspapers, books, magazines. One particular sentence that zinged through me was by columnist and author Deborah Levy who wrote:

We will have to investigate the magic of the universe from home.

Surveying my To-Read pile, I pulled out two books that have been gathering dust for many months, mainly because I had never felt in the mood to read them since purchase - Island Home: A Landscape Memoir and Land's Edge: A Coastal Memoir, both by fellow West Australian, Tim Winton.

Who knew that it would take a global pandemic to put me in the mood?

I was less than a third of the way through Island Home when it clicked that the sentences were slaking a thirst I didn't realise I had. I drank it whole and moved swiftly onto Land's Edge.

Both books took me to a place and time outside of corona virus, lock downs and social distancing. They evoked a craving for the West Australian landscape that germinated in me as a young child exploring bush land near our suburban brick and tile home. They made me long for a coastline that leaves your mind blank when you look at it.

I wrote about this longing after my first few years of living in London; about missing the brand of wilderness that raised me. It took about five, six years of London life for the oasis of a coastline to ebb in my mind.

Fifteen years on, I thought I had adapted to my new environs and that the zest of daily London life had put to bed the craving for wild.

I was wrong. It was just subsumed. Waiting.

As Mr Winton wrote in Land's Edge:

In Europe I tried the landlocked existence. In Paris I experienced my first apartment and my first truly dispiriting body of water, the Seine. The city itself was a revelation, an astounding and beautiful place, but after six months I found myself crazy for the margins.

It's no coincidence that during this marginal existence we are living, waiting on the edges of our lives for the threat of covid to recede, that I yearn for the spaces that make me feel outside of myself. To be overwhelmed in nature as opposed to being overwhelmed by a virus.

Something has come full circle. And it's only week 4.

Oh No. Bojo has the Covo.

CoVo world moves at a rate of knots. Things change with a blink.

A few days ago, the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was hospitalised in St Thomas' Hospital with 'persistent' symptoms of coronavirus. He's spent the last two nights in ICU and apparently is in 'good spirits.' 

Bojo's a no go. He's in Tommo's laid low with the CoVo. So now, we've got Dommo leading the Toro's.*

I'm no fan of Bojo but I wish him a full recovery. In this unheralded time, we need stability, even if it does come in the form of Boris Johnson. The irony of him receiving the very best of NHS care; care that his party has systematically stripped away from many others less fortunate is glaringly apparent under the world spotlight.

What isn't changing swiftly is the Husband's recovery from suspected CoVo. It's been 18 days since he fell ill and he is 6kg thinner and too weak to walk out the front door and do a socially distant stroll to the end of our road. Although he is improving slowly, I have never, in the 25 years I've known him, ever seen him this debilitated.

And he is one of the lucky ones, to have had a 'mild' case of CoVo, if that is indeed what he had.

I hope that it was.

Because going through it once was enough.

*I have been watching a lot of Kath and Kim

And on the Second Day...

It's blinding how fast things can change.

It's remarkable how quickly you can adapt to that change

Our family are in the tenth day of self isolation due to the Husband developing symptoms of corona virus, just as the schools closed. Overnight I became the sole parent to our nine year old as she was tipped into the wormhole of homeschooling and not being allowed to leave the house for two weeks apart from daily exercise, far away from others.

I also became the sole carer for an adult who could do nothing apart from lock himself away to avoid infecting us. Our correspondence has been carried out via text messages and my knocking on his closed door to alert him of the meals I have left outside.

Ten days have felt like three weeks but what I have noticed is that being in this domestic situation is like having an newborn baby. I disinfect the house avidly for fear of corona germs. I cook, serve, clean, cook, serve, clean; ad infinitum. My hands resemble claws, so much have I washed them.

The patchwork nature of my days going from chore to chore to chore means I have found myself unable to think in an linear or in depth fashion,. Instead I have snatched thought syndrome; something I remember from the newborn days.

In this new world order, I have observed the following things over the past few days:

• Freedom is a state of mind. But it helps if you can feel daylight on your skin and outside air on your face, even if for only a few minutes a day. 

• I am not the technophobe I thought I was. It turns out that when technology is needed, I am a fast adapter. Zoom is the current raison d'etre of online connection and I became a Zoomer in seconds. 

• I've always thought that it is important to know how how to be alone. And to be comfortable being alone. This helps at times like these.

• I am innately, a frugal person.Turns out I was listening to Mum all those years ago.

• But it turns out, there is a LOT less that I can live without. 

• The morning sun in our back garden is glorious.

• Nature becomes everything during solitude

• My dreams are very, very vivid. It's as if I am living my real life while sleeping and on waking, return to a dystopian Groundhog Day. 

• Structure is important. There is no freedom with structure. I can't remember who said that but I have always agreed. 

• I'm not sure in the months to follow what I will miss more - free  movement through the world or physical contact with others. We'll see.

• Seeing a plane flying overhead right now is a marvel, like seeing the articulation of possibility made into a machine.

• The view from the rooftop outside my loft window at sunset remains untarnished

• I'm enjoying street noise because it has become rare. 

• Being a writer is perfect for travelling anywhere and everywhere,when you can't.

• People can be pretty damn marvellous. Or not.

But there is no time to think anymore. Things to get on with. People to see (on Zoom). 

Corona used to be a Beer

Since my last post, a mere few weeks ago, it seems that the Earth has stopped rotating anti-clockwise on its axis and decided to turn the other way. We seem to have entered a new reality usually found in dystopian paperbacks sold at airports or kitsch movies about the zombie apocalypse.

I am referring to the force know as COVID-19, the coronavirus which is rapidly altering the way we live, for now. The core of our social infrastructure, i.e. human interaction, is being unpicked in order to stem the potential deaths that this virus may cause and ease the burden it will inflict on the health services.

Here in London, all schools are now closed.* Citizens have been asked to work from home and avoid unnecessary travel. Restaurants, pubs, libraries, gyms, theaters; all places where people gather in dense numbers to interact have been instructed to close to try and 'flatten the curve,' to allow the NHS to try and cope with the anticipated influx of very ill people.

Squash that peak!

Some people I know feel this social cease and desist has happened too late and that we should have shut down several weeks ago. Others are slightly begrudging of the new social sanctions imposed but acknowledge that we all have to do our bit, whether we have symptoms or not.

In this new landscape, I thought it would be prudent to check on my folks in Australia who, being in their 70s fall into the high risk group should they catch corona and have been told to practice social distancing.

My folks and I are already socially distant, given that we live 10,000 miles apart. We are also very self reliant of one another and phone calls are now rare occurrences, replaced by a family Whatsapp chat. But if a global pandemic doesn't make you call your parents on the other side of the world, then I don't know what will.

Mum answered the phone and after a lecture about mask wearing and asking after the Grandchild, she moved onto the subject on everyone's lips.

Toilet Paper.

I noticed the early signs of the phenomena known as Panic Buying when I was getting ready to leave Australia in early March. Stocking up on Tim Tams one morning in the local IGA, I saw that the loo roll section was bare. When I returned to London days later, I got chatting to a staff member at Morrisons who showed me a photo on his phone of the loo roll aisle just one day before. Empty. He was restocking as we spoke and in light of what he'd said, I put down the 12 pack of bog roll I was going to buy and picked up the 24.

How many bums are they going to wipe?

It's a good thing I did for weeks later, toilet roll has become like gold dust. People are queuing before supermarkets open to try and get some. Corner shops are hoarding it behind their counters, selling it only to 'regular customers.' Psychologists are saying that this global fixation with toilet paper is symptomatic of trying to maintain control at a time where things are chaotic and unknown. A local taxi driver told me he thought it was because people were full of shit.

Freud would have a field day.

Toilet paper has never been in short supply at my Mum's house. She is Chinese and therefore she buys bulk. In a gentler time, pre-Corona, visitors to our family house would gaze at wonder at the Great Wall of Toilet Paper assembled and marvel how we would never, ever run out.

Well.

Due to our recent visit to Australia, my family and I had depleted Mum's toilet paper inventory.

We were down to ten rolls when you left, she reported,'But I didn't worry. All those crazy people. As if we couldn't get toilet paper.

But she couldn't.

I went to Coles. I went to Woolies. None at Aldi's either.

So what happened? I asked. After all, this is a woman who in the 1980s was captured on the evening news limboing under a half open store door so she could be one of the first inside during a Boxing Day sale to nab a microwave that was 50% off.

Your Father and I woke up early one morning and he said, 'lets go shopping now before breakfast' so we went to a nearby Coles. But we didn't know where the loo paper aisle was because we don't usually shop there. There were already about 30 people waiting outside when we arrived.

So what did you do?

I said to your Father, it's easy. As soon as the shop opens, just follow the crowd. They'll lead us to the toilet paper.

And did they?

When I saw where the crowd were headed, I slipped around and went the back way. Got there before most of them.

How much did you buy?

36 rolls. It'll do.

It's reassuring to me at a time where so much is changing in an unprecedented way, that Mum always come up trumps when faced with a challenge. Loo roll or locusts, she'll find a way to overcome.

 I hope in the months to follow, I've inherited her moxie. 



  *Most schools will remain open on a skeleton teaching crew for children of key workers

Highway to Hell

I was having brunch yesterday with an old friend in the Canvas cafe courtyard at Fremantle Arts Centre when she asked me:

Why don't you write your blog anymore?

A little oasis

I rambled on about focusing on my umpteenth rewrite and getting to the end of the draft (which is developing at the pace that if I were racing against a snail with my writing speed, the snail would win) and as I heard the words come out of my mouth, I thought:

This is bullshit. You could keep blogging if you wanted to. It's good practice for writing short pieces quickly and the Husband will be happy that you are ranting here again rather than at him.

But what could I write about?

Coincidentally later on that day, Highway to Hell, the much heralded finale of the 2020 Perth Festival was taking place. On the 40th anniversary of the death of Perth local and former AC/DC lead singer, Bon Scott, the event intended to be a homage to his legacy. A logistical feat, it involved closing down 10 km of a road called Canning Highway, a strip immortalised in the AC/DC song, Highway to Hell. A convoy of eight trucks, each containing live acts would motor the length of the highway from 4pm - 9.30pm, entertaining the crowds and stopping at three key points to play one full AC/DC song of their interpretation.

Truck trundling
Pic courtesy of the Twitterverse

Everyone in Perth knew about the event because for weeks leading up to it, event information had been splashed all around the city and you couldn't drive anywhere in the areas surrounding Canning Highway without seeing road signs stating:

CANNING HIGHWAY CLOSED MAR 1. HIGHWAY TO HELL

It was the ultimate form of advertising for Perth is car central, so much so that eventually the citizens will lose their legs and grow wheels.

My friend knew I was going but she had no plans to. Her sentiment was that she didn't understand why the Perth arts community would go to such lengths to commemorate a drunk bogan, rock icon that he was.

Why can't they have chosen someone with better qualities to honour? she asked, rather than someone who used to drive around pissed, shagging lots of women?

I could see her point but it was a question I didn't have an answer for. By definition, her description of Bon Scott probably could have been found in the dictionary under the words ROCK STAR (of a certain era. Or not)

But who else do you know that would draw the mixed crowds? I asked.  Who else would three local councils AND the state government work together to shut down that road for? I can't even think of a sports person they would do that for?

I really couldn't.

Later that evening, I gathered with thousands of others under the freight container rainbow sculpture in East Fremantle, the last stopping point for the trucks where each band would play a final song. The crowd was mixed, there were families, students, pensioners, tourists, the odd bogan and everything in between. The fact that it was a free, unlicensed family event created an easy going atmosphere amongst the punters. Local acts and DJs entertained the crowd while we waited for the sighting of the first truck.

East Fremantle Rainbow

When it came, it was the Pigram Brothers; a much loved local Broome band singing a version of TNT followed by Long Way to the Top. Musically they were fantastic but their expressions suggested that they all wanted a nice lie down.

They look knackered  I shouted to my friend R, just as one of the band spoke to the crowd:

We have been playing non stop for four hours. 

That explains it  R replied.

After that the trucks kept coming showcasing the following acts:

Dom Mariani with the Tommyhawks / Steve 'N' Seagulls / Carla Geneve with the Floors / Shonen Knife / Odette Mercy with Mathas / Amyl and the Sniffers / Abbe May with The Southern River Band.

It was a treat for me to hear the array of Australian music on offer, and also enjoy the acts from Finland and Japan. My favourite of the night was Carla Geneve and the Floors performing a sublime version of Hells Bells. I also loved Odette Mercy singing High Voltage in Tongan

The last truck came with Abbe May with The Southern River Band performing Can I Sit Next to You Girl. As they rolled off, the event ended and the barricades opened. It felt anticlimactic as we all started walking down the said Highway to Hell to wherever our next destinations were.

Freo showed up for AC/DC
Pic courtesy of Twitterverse

Is that it? I thought to myself. I wanted more but there was none to be had. Later I realised my post AC/DC malaise was due to the lack of momentum caused by the event structure. Each truck appeared for a moment and then was whisked away. It was like swiping on Tinder (I've been told), seeing only the briefest idea of a person or in this case, the band. I had gone expecting a live gig and what the event was, was AC/DC on Tinder. There was no chance to get stuck into the act or their music.

In the end though, the only music that really mattered that night was Accadacca's. Beloved by the hundreds and thousands of Perth citizens who swarmed to hear it played, it showed the power that songs can have through time and space. And that you can still be the life of the party, even when you're dead.


And the music was good and the music was loud
And the singer turned and he said to the crowd
Let there be rock

-Let There Be Rock - AC/DC

Hiatus

It's been awhile since I've posted and that's no coincidence. Years ago I started blogging as a way to keep writing under the illusion that someone, somewhere might read it.* When I started in 2005 (another blog, not  this one), I was newly married, childless, starting a new life in London and recovering from ME. Now in 2019, I'm still married, have one child, consider London home** and recovering every day from the juggling act that is work-family-social-writing.

Unlike 2005 I now have a semi-regular writing practice because I am trying to write a children's book. I got serious about it a few years back when people started dropping dead around me so this children's book is my mid life crisis, only that I have always written in some form or other.  Serious means that any spare time is sucked up by the book and a few other writing projects that I hope will gain traction.

So being serious about writing (oh so serious) means that I don't have time to blog anymore. If I ever finish the bloody thing, I might start again but until that elusive point in time (insert Gatsby's green light here) I will not be blogging.

So until that fine morning, take care and see you on the flip side.

To be a serious writer requires discipline that is iron fisted. It’s sitting down and doing it whether you think you have it in you or not. Every day. Alone. Without interruption. . . . There is no glamour in writing. In fact it’s heartbreak most of the time.” ~Harper Lee

* And because it amuses me
** Until Brexit happened.

Palate Cleansing

I googled 'Australian - Chinese' writers recently in a pique of curiosity to see what would come up. This article caught my interest, mainly because of the word 'hyphenated.'

Years ago when I was a university student in Perth, I was introduced to the works of Trinh Minh-ha, who wrote something that has stuck in my head all these years.

'The challenge of a hyphenated reality lies in the hyphen itself. The hyphenated condition certainly does not limit itself to a duality between cultural conditions.'

I had not, up to that point, ever thought of myself as a hyphen, or hyphenated, but Minh-ha's theory around hybrid identities resonated with me. And still does because it provides an apt symbol for those of us who have or still do straddle multiple ethnic and cultural worlds as part of our daily lives. The fact that the article that caught my interest about Australian-Chinese writers is titled 'No-one is Born Hyphenated.' shows it is still a popular symbol being used 

Anyway, the opening paragraph contained another sentence that caught my attention. I quote:

Ethnic literature's hot. And important, too,” says one writing instructor. “I’m sick of ethnic lit,” a fellow student retorts, “It’s full of descriptions of exotic food.” 

This made me laugh because the memoir I am writing about growing up as a Chinese kid in Australia contains lots of descriptions about the getting, preparing and eating of said exotic food.

I am such a cliche was my second thought.

Which got me thinking about us hyphenated Chinese - (add second culture here, or third, ad infinitum) people for whom food is, to put it mildly, pretty important.

And not just any food. Good Food. Good Chinese Food.

Good Chinese Food is very important to most of my Chinese-hyphen friends. I have friends that have rice every night. Congee is important. Meat is important. Quality is important. Wok flame is important.

It makes sense. Irrespective of culture, your palate is formed by the food you eat growing up. And your attitudes towards food are informed by your environment . For the Chinese, food is imbued with vast powers. It is medicinal. It is preventative. It is superstition. It is celebratory. It is family. It is communion. It is value-for-money. It is, just short of religion. Actually, it is a religion. For the Chinese, food is a religion.

Somehow, I became an atheist.

Like most of my hybrid friends, Chinese food was a huge part of my upbringing but now, unlike some of them, I do not regard Chinese Food as the apex of the culinary universe. I like it. I eat it occasionally. I eat a lot of it if mum and dad are visiting. But for the most part, it does not feature in my daily diet.

This does not compute with some of these friends. It doesn't compute with my mother although she pretends it does.

But what do you eat? they ask, aghast.

I like raw things, I like vegetarian food. I don't really like congee. I think stir-frying is handy, but over- rated.

I don't want to eat the things that I had to eat every night growing up.  My palate is not a case of either-or. Chinese Food vs All Other Food.

There is however, one Chinese dish which I worship with holy devotion. It has sustained me for 43 years, most likely because I don’t have it that often.

Like the title of the article, we are not born hyphenated.  We are born multitudinal. I couldn't exercise that within my palate as a child when rice was might.

But I can now.

Going Full BAME

BAME is the common acronym used in the UK for anyone who is Black. Asian. Minority. Ethnic. I fit into the BAME definition but it is a term which I have never liked.  The first time I ever heard it was during a job interview for Yellow Earth theatre. I was fresh off the boat (another popular term used in relation to BAME people). I had not been in London long and was bright-eyed and bushy- tailed in my eagerness to submerge myself into the arts scene.

I thought the interview was going well when the Chinese-British director asked what I thought about working for a BAME company.

Excuse me? What's that?

BAME. Black. Asian. Minority. Ethnic.

I stared at him. Was he serious?

What a horrible term. We’re all just lumped in together?!

The comment was out before I could stop it. The smile left the director's  and he pursed his lips defensively.

What's wrong with it?

Sorry, I just haven't heard that before, I back pedaled. It's not a term that's used in Australia.

Well what do you use in Australia?

For theatres like this, we would usually say Community Theatre. Not BAME.

BAME is more descriptive.

How? Where do I fit? I'm Chinese. Does that make me Minority or Ethnic? I know it's not Asian cause Asian means Indian in this country. 

The look he gave me told me he thought I was an idiot first and foremost, irrespective of ethnicity.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job. I left in a huff.

What a moron I thought. Talk about being a willing participant in your own incarceration.

Finally, publishing is taking a Benetton approach.

Years later (ie, now) when I started attending writing retreats and workshops, I heard the BAME term being bandied about again. It turns out that being a BAME is a good thing in publishing right now as the industry and market have realised that not only white people can tell stories or write books.

I absorbed this news and unlike my younger angry self, I decided to go all in. Go Full BAME.

Why not use this moment to my advantage I thought. I sure as hell need whatever help I can get.

So I started applying for writing awards and competitions specifically aimed at BAME people.  Luck would have it that I got offered places on some of them. Does this make me feel like I sold out?

Nope. It makes me feel like about fucking time other voices and people were considered legit and commercial.

Maybe this turn around in my attitude was the getting of wisdom.  In all likelihood, it was just wanting to get.

Get something. In writing. Out.

Middle of the Road

Middle age happens so suddenly.  The future is infinite until one day, it is not. The first time someone called me middle-aged, I scoffed.

You are middle-aged 

No I'm not!

Yes you are. You're over forty. Do you think you'll live until eighty- something?

Hmm. He had a point. I don't intend to live past eighty, and if I do, it will be an accident.

But despite the logic of numbers and average human lifespan presented to me, I did not consider myself middle-aged. The symptoms against which middle-agedness is gauged (in my society) such as physical decline, irrational desires to tick off bucket-list items (compete in marathons, write a book, adopt unflattering hairstyles) and an increasing observation that everyone seems really young all happened and are happening to me but I remained staunch in my refusal to be one of  them.

The Middle Aged.

Those people.

Then Book Club happened. Book Club has been happening to me for the past few years. It is, perhaps, another sign of being Middle-Aged but I'll pretend that I didn't just say that.

Book Club asked all members to nominate a book for the next meeting. I hummed and hawed as I scanned the three shelves of books that are on my 'to read ' list. None of them seemed suitable. I looked at my list of notes where I write down book titles that seem interesting.

Nah.

I gazed at my shelves and my notes.  Then it hit me.

I will never read all the books I want to read before I die.

In my head, I am this age when reading

In reality, I am closer to this age when reading

The list is too long. Some of the books I want to read, I don't even know that I want to read them because they haven't been written yet.

I realised that I no longer have the luxury of thinking,  I'll read that some day. I'll get around to it. That the years I have left are not sufficient read all that I want.

It's a tragedy.

And just like that, I became Middle-Aged.

Bird: by Crystal Chan

There is something about certain books you read as a child that stay with you. For all the reading I’ve done as an adult, nothing comes close to the obsessive amount of times I re-read The Endless Steppe; Bridge to Terabithia; Momo; the Ramona series; Hating Alison Ashley and the first book I never returned to my school library, Dancing Star by Gladys Malvern.* I knew every yellowed page, every dog-eared wrinkle, every dirty finger smudge found within the pages of those stories. Falling in love with a book or a story for the first time usually happens, if it happens at all, when you are a kid and discovering the world of reading.


So when I was told that to write children’s stories, you must read prolifically in the genre, it was a task I looked forward to. My seven year old daughter certainly helped me come up to speed with what kids her age were now reading. Judy Moody. The Treehouse Series. Wimpy Kid. They were fine but left no impression on me. So I branched out and started reading random middle-grade books that looked interesting in the library or bookshop. I read best-selling middle grade, obscure middle grade; local and overseas middle grade. I enjoyed many of them but none of them left a mark of any kind. I did not re-read any of them.

Then I read Bird by Crystal Chan.

I found Bird one weekend when visiting Brighton. We were sheltering from the rain in the local Waterstones and my daughter was doing her best to keep us prisoners of the children’s book section. We were not allowed to leave until she had inspected all that she wanted to inspect, which was considerable. I really only had myself to blame, having fostered this habit in her since birth so I followed suit. I picked up Bird, initially because of the surname signifying East Asian descent. There aren’t many Chinese people writing kids books. So I picked it up and after reading the first few pages, put it down, thinking ‘I already have too many books.' Then I picked it back up. Read a bit more. This dance of denial continued for a good while and eventually, the only possible outcome happened which was that Bird came out of the shop with me. Paid for, of course.

And then it sat in my bookshelf for over six months.

I had the good sense to pack it for a writing weekend away and started to read it on my train journey. By Chapter Three, I was hooked. By Chapter Four, I was texting people to tell them that THEY MUST READ THIS BOOK.

What was it about Bird that hooked me? The voice of the main character, a young girl called Jewel, was stronger than anything I have read in a long while. Also the way Ms Chan writes about Jewel’s relationship with the natural world literally was breathtaking and for me, instantly relatable. There were certain phrases in the story that made me just stop. Really stop and pay attention and absorb what had just been said on the page. I was in thrall of what the author had managed to do. Which in my case, was to wake up a part of me that hasn’t been reached by a book or a story in a very long time. Bird is a book I wish I had written.

I wrote to Ms Chan the minute I finished reading it. I just had to. I told her that she had set the bar to another level for me and how much I admired her talent. Her swift reply was gracious, kind, and in truth, a bit quirky.

Lit up somehow from this experience, I started reading, My Name is Mina, by David Almond the next day. As I turned the first few pages, I thought it would not be in the same stratosphere as Bird. I mean, how could it?

YOU MUST READ THESE BOOKS

I read it in an hour. I ignored my daughter who was waiting for her breakfast and gave her an ipad instead. I ignored the beep of the washing machine finishing its cycle. I ignored my buzzing mobile.


To be cracked open by two incandescent, insightful and special books in a week just does not happen anymore. Until it does and I am reminded, thankfully, that experiences from childhood can still be had.




*Technically this is called stealing which is not a good idea.

Spread the Word Life Writing Prize

During a sluggish period with the children’s book I am (forever) writing, I saw a call for competition entries for the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize. Life writing, as defined by the competition rules, is writing that is based on real life experiences of the author. As luck would have it, I had a piece that I had started writing a few years ago about growing up in Australia during the 70s and 80s and what it was like to be the only Chinese kid in school. I dug it up, worked on it and then sent it off to the competition.

To my surprise and delight, my entry was longlisted alongside eleven other writers. This meant that I got to attend the Awards Ceremony and read an excerpt from my piece. I met the other longlisted writers; competition judges; the wonderful Joanna Munro who is personally financing the award for five years and the Spread the Word staff who were super to deal with in the lead up to the Awards Night. I also got to invite my long-suffering friends to the ceremony where they actually heard some words I’d written rather than me babbling on about writing to them but not ever showing them anything.

After we had all read from our pieces, Danny Brunton was announced as the winner with his with his piece, New Boy, alongside Paradoxical by Xanthi Barker and Small Talk by Laura Morgan as highly commended entries.

I had already been informed by Spread the Word prior to the event that I had not made the shortlist, so I knew that I was not in the running. But to me, I felt I had already won; obvious to all that were not blind by the huge shit-eating grin plastered to my face the whole night. Because I think when I found out I had made the longlist, it may have been the happiest day of my life. More than my wedding day or the day my child was born.

That’s how happy it made me. Pure unadulterated joy unmarred by stress (wedding) and pain (childbirth)

What a terrible thing for a mother and wife to say.

But it’s true.

It was a really good day.