Catharine Withenay

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Withenay's Wednesday Word

Hyperthymesia

The condition of possessing an extremely detailed autobiographical memory, particularly in relation to dates and specific events.

Diana, Princess of Wales – Photo credit: ABC news

I was interested to hear a journalist state yesterday that Princes William and Harry had fulfilled their public duties and were going to spend the anniversary of their mother’s death in private. I wondered what they were going to do. How normal could their day be? Would the date – our artificial numbering of days so that it is a ‘round 20′ – make the day any worse than the previous 7300? Or would they simply spend the day playing computer games, or bananagrams, or jousting (or whatever modern-day princes do)?

Like them, I have an anniversary this year: thirty years since my own mother died. I have a ten year head-start on them! Like William, I was a teenager: just 16 when she died. I didn’t have the glare of publicity surrounding me, I didn’t have the horror of the unexpected, given her cancer had already been declared terminal. But I did – and do – have the experience of the most precious person’s life being cut short far too early. That single event has been the most significant in my life – in some ways more so than my marriage or the birth of my children. For those, she wasn’t there, and she should have been, and I noticed.

Grief is a peculiar emotion. We have images of the grieving widow (Queen Victoria-like, dressed in black and permanently despondent) or the grief-struck (much wailing, clutching a sodden handkerchief) or the stunned (reclusive, solitary, uncommunicative). It hits at unexpected times, when a phrase uttered, or a passing scent, or a recipe in a book can catch you unawares. Mostly these pass with a happy remembrance; sometimes tears flow.

I am a mathematician and it is dates that I remember. I wrote a little of it in my first book, In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree. That reflected the date when I’d lived as long without her as with her. A few months ago my son passed the age I was when Mum died (16 years, 7 months and 1 day, if you wish to be precise): I consider myself now in unchartered territory as a mother. This November it will be thirty years since her death: ten years more than the princes we grieve with today.

But dates can also throw up anomalies. Last week my son got his GCSE results (he did very well, thank you very much). I was dreading the day, and cried several times in advance. For me, it was the last day I made my mother happy. (I, too, did very well, thank you very much.) At that point we didn’t know the cancer had returned. I can picture her excitement on seeing the envelope fall on the mat, and her joy when I told her the results. In the subsequent months I let her down: I didn’t meet her at the appointed time, I complained to her when she was on her deathbed – memories I wish I could erase or in some way make up for. But that August: that was when I made her smile.

So this year, thirty years on, I was half-dreading results day… yet in the end it was simply a lovely day for our family. It even involved meeting my uncle – my mother’s brother – and actually talking about Mum a bit (a rarity, simply because of the passage of time and because we are not a maudlin family). We laughed, we celebrated, and the date that could have been awkward passed happily.

I hope the same happens for William and Harry today. All the build up, all the anniversary celebrations, all the remembrances: their grief has to be public. I can keep it all private. But happy memories of the most loved people are the best, and I delight that I was able to make my mother smile before the final months of her life.

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Writing

Ultracrepidarian

Someone who holds forth on a subject they know absolutely nothing about.

I have neglected the blog for too long. A small part of me wants to promise you consistent posting from now on: a regular post on something important and pertinent to the writing life. The larger part of me knows that I would fail, so dare not start. But – and please forgive me this writing pun – maybe this is the beginning of a new chapter.

When it comes to writing I often feel like I am ultracrepidarian. Most people can write; most of them can write sentences, paragraphs, even stories or essays that make coherent sense. So what makes a writer a writer?

I have come to the conclusion that it is ‘bum on seat’. A writer is a writer because they write. And the only way to write is to sit down and do it. Application to the craft is key to success. So much of the writing advice is that it is all very well to have a brilliant story idea, but until it is set down on paper (or tapped onto the computer) it is merely a thought or dream.

Another reason people don’t actually write their stories is their fear of getting it wrong. Writing is like elite sport: you only get any good by practise. The more you do, the more you learn, the better you become. At least, that is my theory. Some of us may never win Olympic Gold (Man Booker Prize) but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it onto the local football team (craft an excellent story – and have fun!)

Writing begets writing. It is addictive, seeping into you such that you can’t let it go. One story leads to another; one character draws you in to knowing a family more. As a plot develops, things happen: branches from the main tree trunk that you wish to follow and explore. Some break off, forming stories of their own; others become grafted on, intertwined with the original storyline.

Like any profession, writing requires dedication and commitment. For me, that is setting time aside when what I do is write, whatever the family is doing, or whatever the children need from me. To move forward, it has to be treated as a career in much the same way as my (paid) employment is. Sometimes that will involve blog posts.

Ultracrepidarian? Never! Now, back to the grindstone…

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General

Hansel and Gretel

I don’t get opera. Never have, if I’m honest. Why sing a story? You can’t hear the words properly and, in my opinion, it is better being a play. Or an orchestral concert. However, my father loves opera and generously bought tickets for his entire family to go and see Hansel & Gretel. (It was our Christmas present, in place of going to the pantomime. Guess which I’d have preferred…)

Anyway, I wasn’t disappointed: it was exactly as I expected. Thankfully there were screens so you could read the words the performers were singing; unfortunately, if you read them you couldn’t watch the drama. No-win situation. My daughter struggles with understanding words but loved the visuals, so enjoyed her afternoon out. My son was very well-behaved, tolerating this bizarre thing mainly by looking at the screen behind us that showed the conductor. My husband and I sought words for being polite.

But griping about opera wasn’t why I started this post. Whoever had put this production together had given it a modern twist, setting it almost exclusively in a dated kitchen/flat. It made sending the children out into the wood to forage for food a little unrealistic, but the portrayal of poverty and despair by the mother and father was challenging. Kids will be kids: they’d been asked to do something while mum was out, they didn’t do it but played around instead. She gets home, the house is a mess and the job hasn’t been done. She has no food and then they break the jug containing the cream, the only food left in the house. At this point she throws them out of the house and cries in despair of her lot.

Though I have never – thank goodness – been at that stage of starvation, I did empathise with the motherhood aspect. The frustration in feeling that the children are doing nothing to help around the house, that everything falls on me, that routine has overtaken joy. It is hard enough being a mother, juggling a household with (or without) a job.

Then I thought of those people in my country who are struggling to put food on the plate for their children, who are making £40 pay for a family of four for a week, and then get chastised for not providing 5-a-day (or now 10-a-day!) or a healthy variety of meals. People who are too embarrassed to go to a food bank, or to claim free school meals. People who are down on their luck, or born into the wrong estate, or who are destroyed by a system that only rewards academia rather than skill or patience.

And I thought of my family, shelving out many pounds to buy opera tickets, and then enjoying a wonderful meal out together. Was it wrong for us to do that?

How, realistically, do we re-balance wealth? Is there a justice in Wayne Rooney being able to take a job in China for £750k per week, whereas Sutton United’s entire payroll is £10,000? Does a doctor, working upwards of 60 hours per week, deserve to be earning more than a man who holds down three manual jobs in order to pay the rent? Do we put too much pressure on people to ‘make money’? Are the rich revered and the poor despised?

During Lent my husband and I have resolved to read/study Archbishop Justin Welby’s new book “Dethroning Mammon”. Perhaps he will have some answers. I fear that he may not, or – worse – I won’t like them.

General

Full circles

It has been too long since I have written on the blog – my apologies. Withenay’s Wordless Wednesday has taken on a life of its own but Irealise now that the last time I posted any written words was back in July, as the election was approaching in Zambia and as the shock of the Brexit vote in the UK was still fresh.

And today, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America. How the world has changed. I cannot deny that on some levels it terrifies me, as people seem to be voting in a most insular way. In the US, this is seen in Trumps advocacy to ban Muslims from entering the country, building a wall on the Mexican border and imposing high import duties on goods made outside the US. In the UK, the anti-immigration rhetoric of the Brexiteers is unabated, as is their clamour for ‘our laws’ and ‘our government’, while not being prepared to put the referendum before parliament. There is a swing in both countries towards the far right and that is a deep concern. I will fight that whenever I can.

Of course, six months of non-communication is not just down to world events, however seismic they may have been. Home life has carried on with ups and downs, some of which I can relate but many not so. My daughter’s health and well-being has been a particular challenge. She has a statement and learning difficulties (problem 1) and added to that some development issues (problem 2); and new to the list since I last wrote is orthodontic issues (problem 3: the adult tooth is growing the wrong way, so will need to be removed and braces required to fill the gap) and – most excitingly – in the past week we’ve discovered that she has an arrhythmia of the heart (problem 4: bigeminy). Never rains but pours.

The rest of the family are fit and healthy, thank goodness. Their stresses arise from work (too much of it, too many hours, too little actually achieved) and exams (mocks, and then the first exams that actually have an import in life – GCSEs – in the summer).

My job is juggling them all… and hopefully squeezing in a little time for my own work.

Which leads me on to writing. (I’m skipping over paid-employment: that’s also been stressful in the last six months, but once January deadlines are over I’m optimistic of some improvement!) Writing. I feel this has a school report style of summary: should do more. I have excuses (please see above…) but it has rather crawled to a halt. My New Year resolution (‘write more’) also crashed when the heart problems arose last week.

But I am determined to be positive, and I am determined to turn the corner and move on. Even before the issues with my daughter last week, I had written nearly 3000 words towards my novel. This is, of course, nothing compared to the 100,000 target, but it is a step in the right direction. One day my novel will be written, and then all my blog posts will be about the endless tedium of editing it! (I’m resisting doing that as I go along, but undoubtedly it needs a lot of first aid!)

And I am delighted with the ongoing success of my Zambian books. It is such a privilege to be able to chat with some of you about them, about the times my family shared out there. This week a postcard arrived from my father-in-law, which he had posted last July when visiting my sister-in-law. He wrote it from the banks of the Zambezi river, enjoying the tranquility of a flowing river, beautiful sunshine and being surrounded by wildlife.

It ended with the question: When are you moving back here?

When indeed.

So, a postcard written last July; and the last written blog post about the same time. From Brexit to Trump. Life is full of circles.