I've written twenty six novels. (Three of them aren't published yet, if anyone's counting.) And a handful of short stories. Two sitcom scripts that went into development and never came out again. More blog posts than there are weeds in my veg patch (and it's been a very wet spring). I'm not bragging. How could I, when I consider all the things I can't do? Cannot do for the life of me. Couldn't do with bucket of custard balanced above me. For instance: the four-legged-stick yoga pose; finding my way anywhere in a car until I've been there fifteen times; Mailchimp; and choux pastry.
In the middle of a seamless hour of down dog, up dog, plank, pigeon, happy baby and all the warriors, this is the one that separates me (after a year of yoga) from the women who've been practising since actual leotards. I cannot even begin to make my body do this. If I try, I go "oof", I land on my face and the teacher laughs. I console myself with how hard it is to make a yoga teacher laugh and how few of the others could manage that. I've got some yoga strengths: I can do cow and gatepost like a machine. Anything in the farmyard line? I'm your guru.
My poor sense of direction is even more irritating. I can find my way on foot, and I can make a stab at finding a place I've never been before, but making a journey I "should know" outwits me. It was worse when I couldn't use SatNav either. For years, I'd get lost and, if I turned on the GPS, I'd get lost and angry. I trained myself to follow that passive aggressive voice - re-calculating - by keeping it on all the time even when I was driving from home to the shops. Now it's a godsend. And I know people much worse than me. I've got a friend who can't find her own car after cinema visits, even though she parks it in the same place every week and has lived in this town for six years. Once, she got lost driving down her own street. To be fair, it's got a corner in it.
Mailchimp? Designed by Kafka, loved by masochists. I've got someone helping me get my newsletter up and running (thank you, blessed Erin Mitchell) because two months of logging on, using Help, and watching Youtube videos was just a flashback to early SatNav: still lost but now also seething.
Choux pastry hurts. I can make nice bread, passable other pastry, edible cakes, delicious biscuits, shortbread that causes a feeding frenzy, cheeses straws to die for even if I say it myself, and toothsome meringues. And I've got friends who "knock out profiteroles because time was short". But whenever I've tried to make cream puffs what I end up with is an omelette. And not even a good one.
But writing? Pshaw. Three books a year? Bring it. A short story by tomorrow? Why not yesterday. Writing is . . . I'm not going to say easy, but it's always possible. Writing is home.
Something occurred to me about writing just last weekend, on the beach at Carmel, when I was thinking about life the way you do alone on a beach. Here it is. In every daydream I have ever had - the one where I didn't muck about at school so much and I went to Cambridge and joined the Footlights; the one where I got upgraded and sat next to [XXX redacted reference to embarrassing nineties movie star rhymes with Schmeanu Leaves XXX] and married him; the one where I bought a farm, a penthouse, an island, a restaurant, a circus; the one where I began yoga at forty instead of fifty and never saw 200lbs . . .
. . . in every daydream, I'm a writer. It was quite a moment, there on the beach, to realise that it might have taken me till I was thirty five and it might be uncertain and terrifying at times, but I got one thing in this bewildering life dead right. Profiteroles be damned!
How about you? What do you take with you from your real life into your wildest dreams? (You don't have to name that movie star, by the way.)
We are all fortunate that you found your true calling, Catriona!
My daughter used to call me a sewing goddess. That's my superpower, sewing just about anything.
Posted by: Karen Maslowski | March 12, 2019 at 07:02 AM
If I had my druthers, I would write in the morning, paint in the early afternoon, walk a dog, edit and then play my pedal harp in the late afternoon and read at night. I miss painting and the harp. As for that nasty plank position, I kept falling down. Turned out my shoulder was trashed, very wobbly, and needed surgery. I have an uncanny sense of direction. When I was 26 years old, I drove straight to my grandparents house in Indiana coming from Sacramento and having not been there in 14 years. You're born with it or you aren't. But pasty baking? For a long time I convinced my kids everything I baked was Cajun-style: blackened.
Posted by: Keenan Powell | March 12, 2019 at 07:39 AM
I learned to drive in Texas where the most common part of directions was "keep goin' til..." I had a great sense of direction even being able to distinguish between the compass points easily. Now I too am unable to find my way back to a recently visited location. I blame menopause. Broke my thermostat, so I assume the stupid hormones broke my compass as well!
Posted by: JD Allen | March 12, 2019 at 08:00 AM
I wish I could write or sing or paint or play the cello or even flipping walk across the room without fear of falling. I wish I’d taken better care of my carcass when there was a chance of keeping all my joints in motion. I wished I’d danced one more time.
However, I do know Catriona, and that keeps me very happy.
Posted by: Ann Mason. | March 12, 2019 at 08:01 AM
I keep thinking I should try yoga. But considering I can’t plank longer than 10 minutes without hurting my stomach, I’m beginning to reconsider that.
Posted by: Mark | March 12, 2019 at 08:27 AM
Thank you for this funny - and lovely- essay. Needed the laughs this AM. (I can't do planks either)
Posted by: Triss Stein | March 12, 2019 at 08:57 AM
I'm going to try "chair yoga" next week. Do you suppose the four-legged-stick yoga pose is in the class??? If it is I am going to be very surprised!! I, too, am glad you are a writer!! (And that seems to be an understatement). And my friend!!
Posted by: Debi Huff | March 12, 2019 at 11:40 AM
Love this, Catriona!
Posted by: Sherry Harris | March 12, 2019 at 01:55 PM
Great post!
Posted by: June Lorraine Roberts | March 12, 2019 at 02:52 PM
Until I figured out how to use my phone’s GPS, I couldn’t go anywhere without getting lost. I even planned enough time to bumble around, optimistically renaming the trip ‘an adventure,’ until I found my destination. In high school I was so shy, there were tons of things I didn’t think I could do, except one. I could draw, and I was proud of that. It was my super power. But talk to my classmates? Not until our 40th reunion. I went on to score my first corporate job as a technical writer with my art portfolio! Go figure. And now, I find it amazing that such fine writers, Catriona being my first writer celebrity, are in my life.
Posted by: Wendy Fallon | March 13, 2019 at 05:44 AM
Perfectly awesome. I'll never catch up with you, but I can also do 3 books a year, plus a couple short stories and zillions of blog post words. I've had a dozen serious careers (seriously) and this last one is my favorite, hands down (on the keyboard, of course)!
Posted by: Edith Maxwell | March 14, 2019 at 12:31 PM
Brava for finding what one most wants to do and then doing it well. I wanted to teach since kindergarten, but got my degree in 1972, when most districts were laying off (RIF) teachers. I still dreamt of it, as I worked in other fields, and kept having dreams of it even when in 1980, I finally got to teach. Retired, I still sometimes have teacher dreams. As Thoreau said, it's like being in prison, you never get it off your record. ;-)
Thanks for all the books I finally have time to read. <3
Posted by: Storyteller Mary | March 18, 2019 at 04:04 PM