{"id":110,"date":"2015-08-20T09:22:24","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T09:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/?page_id=110"},"modified":"2015-10-27T12:52:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T12:52:06","slug":"song-of-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/essays\/song-of-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"SONG OF OURSELVES by Tanya Shadrick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>I loafe and invite my soul, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>I lean and loafe at my ease observing\u00a0[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It is other people \u2013 anonymous figures glimpsed\u2026 \u2013 who\u2026reveal our true selves through the interest, the anger or the shame they send rippling through us.\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A gift to myself at mid-life: a few years out of doors in daytime in this town I\u2019ve taken root in, after the example of those free men –<\/span>\u00a0Thoreau, Whitman, Kerouac. Having stripped of salary and status I determined to become a woman who took up space with her notepads and rucksack, unburdened, for a while, of concerns over productivity and appearances. Gone offline as anglers go fishing, I wanted to sit still and listen directly to the sound of my time and place, unmediated by newspapers or social media; to train my ear to catch small and bright flashes of the here and now.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
What follows are extracts from the twenty or so notebooks filled in that time.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Woman to a man in the Grange Gardens: \u2018Oh yes, it\u2019s a beautiful town of course, but I shouldn\u2019t want to live<\/em> here. Too Stepford Wifey.\u2019<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Two mothers, each jiggling a fretful baby on their hip: \u2018I want the whole lot<\/em> done. Loft room, kitchen extension. So it will be around seventy, eighty grand. But when? If I do it this year it\u2019s ruining her last summer\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

She means I realise the baby and this one summer she will spend with her mother before working life resumes and nursery life begins.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Men with shared childhoods who meet rarely are catching up. Talk mainly of homes, houses.<\/p>\n

One is divorced and describing his financial diminishments: \u2018I\u2019m going towards micro-living I\u2019ve decided: One room, bare essentials, kimono and slippers\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

At this I forget my usual dumbshow of not listening and look across; smile, look down, look up. He smiles back, head tilted. Micro-courtship.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d love to visit China. Or India. Somewhere like that. Because I haven\u2019t been anywhere. But I\u2019d just get arrested.\u2019<\/p>\n

A woman in her thirties, girl grown old, with elderly parents, one of whom has just returned laden with cake. Their treat.<\/em> This sad-to-me spectacle of middle-aged children and the tired, old song of themselves sung to parents who still pay; reflexes of a failed fledging.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Women talking. How their mothers counsel them to return to salaried work:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u2018They had it so easy. Time I\u2019ve paid Breakfast Club and After School, I\u2019d have nothing left\u2026And why didn\u2019t I stay in one of my friends\u2019 holiday homes this summer she wanted to know? I said my generation were struggling to buy one<\/em> home let alone two, and that she was lucky so many of her gang have got places in Italy and France.\u2019<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Mothers with very young babies. Mother on the left: \u2018It\u2019s either separation anxiety or teething or some bug\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Mother on the right: \u2018It\u2019s like a military campaign keeping them awake and getting them to this afternoon music group, isn\u2019t it? I spend hours trying to time it all right\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Two women, late fifties, are discussing the dispersal of their parents\u2019 estates:<\/p>\n

\u2018But look! Here are all her accounts. Thirty thousand for my brother\u2019s care bills and she said she couldn\u2019t find a penny more but look! look! \u2013 18k on her horses! The horses!<\/em> And she told all her friends on Facebook that she was crippled by debt! But I don\u2019t want to be thinking about all this.\u2019<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

A man and woman, early fifties, catching up awkwardly after a decade\u2019s separation.<\/p>\n

\u2018So then\u2019 he begins to recap \u2018we last sat and talked before Thailand, after India\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

The woman cuts her lettuce on its tin plate, nods while chewing.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026so then I was back in London which felt so strange. It was just this narrative I couldn\u2019t believe. After San Franciso, I lived on the Holy Isle, so coming back was challenging. And now I\u2019m trying to place the story of me back into the narrative of London\u2026we\u2019re somehow attached to meaning\u2026it\u2019s like a really thick icing on the rich cake of existence\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

The woman murmurs assent. \u2018Yes, that\u2019s a beautiful way of putting it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Now. I sat in this same caf\u00e9 a month ago talking quietly with a friend about the communal life of the Apostles. But we were different, weren\u2019t we, talking in lower tones than this out of consideration for others? Or it may be that all talk, however whole-hearted, is ridiculous if overheard and written down. An experiment for another time, I decide, for balance: To have myself recorded, without my knowing, in conversation with my children, my friends. Have it handed back to me so I must confront my own little tune sung from street corners and coffee shop tables.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0Walt Whitman,\u00a0Song of Myself<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Leaves of Grass\u00a0(final “Death-Bed” edition, 1891-2)<\/em>\u00a0(David McKay, 1892)<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Annie Ernaux, Exteriors<\/em><\/a> (New York:\u00a0Seven Stories Press<\/span>, 1996)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I loafe and invite my soul, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Continue ReadingSONG OF OURSELVES by Tanya Shadrick<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":101,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-110","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P6Ati4-1M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1084,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110\/revisions\/1084"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/newpathways\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}