A Glorious Mess

As the plane taking me to Brisbane for my book launch started its descent, the increasing pressure in the cabin felt like it was trying to implode my head. My ears began hurting. I reminded myself to swallow.

I’ve always had trouble with my ears when descending any distance. As a child, before I’d ever flown in a plane, they would give me grief as we came down the Darling Scarp into Perth from visiting our Meckering cousins or headed back to Pinjarra through Dwellingup. My ears would continually block and release – or not. Sometimes, the descent caused me intense pain; other times, my blocked ears would muffle my hearing for a couple of days.

Learning to swallow effectively was important. Chewing gum helped. But there are other things I’ve had to learn to swallow over the years. Outrage. Disappointment. Anger. Fear. Even excitement.

My recently launched book “Brush Tales ; Silent Stories” was a closely guarded secret for a long time. I didn’t want to tell people because I didn’t want to ‘untell’ them if it got delayed or something else happened. Even though I knew I had to start building a social media interest, I kept quiet until the manuscript had been submitted to the printers.

Have you ever sat on a secret for any length of time? It’s hard. I was delighted and excited and scared and overwhelmed. I applauded myself as much as I doubted my ability to produce work others would want to read. Something would get said in general conversation, and I had to hold back my desire to talk about what I was doing. I told my friends I was busy but couldn’t say what with. A select few knew what was happening, and they were the only people I could confide in during the ups and downs of the creative process. That meant I couldn’t share with my wider circle of friends my delight and joy at being asked to work with someone as a wordsmith – or even as being recognised by someone else as a good writer. I couldn’t share my astonishment at the speed at which my creative journey was progressing – from 50 words published in 2022 to somewhere near 40,000 in 2023. I couldn’t talk about how alive I felt writing from dawn to dusk – and beyond – only taking time out to go to work. And even though I loved every second of what I was doing, I also couldn’t complain about how tired I was from writing with a purpose and a timeline while working, volunteering and parenting.   

So, I swallowed everything. And I kept swallowing it until I was finally able to announce it at the Book Week dress-up day at my work. For that day, I created a t-shirt transfer featuring the book’s front cover and launch details, which went on the front of the shirt. The back cover, showing the blurb and the author and artist’s images, went on the back of my shirt, low enough to not be covered by my dreads. I delighted all day in watching people’s faces as they worked out the name on the cover, and the photo on the back cover was not any author, but me, the person standing in front of them.

And then, suddenly, as if the last four months hadn’t happened, I was on a plane, heading for the book launch in Queensland. The security team that scrutinised our carry-on luggage didn’t care that I was going interstate for the culmination of my creative dreams. They only wanted to ensure the carefully wrapped homemade communicator devices my husband had packed to finish for his sister and niece weren’t bombs. The stewards didn’t care that I was an author either – they just wanted me to stay in my allocated seat rather than marching up and down the aisle and doing my pressure exercises in any open space to ward off potential blood clots from the Factor V Leiden I inherited.

For those brief, beautiful moments of the launch, I was an author. I talked about the creative journey, autographed inside covers with my collaborator and the book’s initiator and inspiration, Wendy, and posed for photos. I read a story aloud while being recorded and broadcast live on Facebook. I was living the dream.

Then I got back on a plane to come home. As the plane began its descent into Perth, my ears started playing their usual game. While the water bottle in my hands began to compress and complain due to the imbalance of water and air against the increasing pressure inside the plane, my ears told me exactly what they thought of the process. I swallowed, and gulped, and drank, and sucked on a menthol jube. My head crackled and popped and cleared and blocked again. Finally, we landed, and I walked out into the terminal, still swallowing and hoping my ears would eventually let me hear properly.

After collecting our luggage and hopping into the car that was taking us home, I worked out there would be one final session of swallowing – because my young adult sons don’t quite get that I’m an author with a book and a writer’s page and a blog and an Instagram account and an intent to continue creating. They just saw Mum back from wherever she said she was going. That ride home, courtesy of one of our boys, was full of stories about what had happened while we were away, and who was annoying who, and which brother ate more than his fair share of the dinners I’d left in the fridge, and what they needed me to do now that I was back.

I joke to my friends that while in Brisbane I’m a feted author, back here in W.A., I’m just Mum. But maybe, just maybe, it’s time for me to stop swallowing my pride and my passion and my accomplishments. Perhaps it’s time to take a deep breath instead and declare loudly who I am. To hold a book signing without feeling pretentious. To promote my written work as naturally as others talk about their achievements. To acknowledge that while I am a mother who is indescribably proud of my children, I have an identity outside of that role, which I have worked hard at and deserve to be acknowledged for.

In the words of the character Jane Villanueva in the Netflix show ‘Jane the Virgin’: “I’m a published freaking author!”. I will not swallow those words when I head back to work, or when I talk to my friends, or when I’m having dinner with my family. I will not pretend I’m nobody or that the launch didn’t happen just because it didn’t happen here. While I’m very aware of the Australian tendency to cut down people who try to rise above, I will still be proud of who I am and acknowledge the incredible thing that has happened.

For those of you who knew, thank you for supporting me during the months of work and emotional upheaval that went into Brush Tales ; Silent Stories (available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/Brush-Tales-Stories-Wendy-Manzo/dp/0645238759/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1XJCN3X78UWKD&keywords=brush+tales&qid=1695181218&sprefix=brush+tales%2Caps%2C800&sr=8-3). Thank you to those who didn’t know and supported me anyway, especially when I kept saying I was too busy to go anywhere. I can go for that coffee now – as long as you understand that I am going to talk about my book. The only thing I will be swallowing is my sparkling mineral water and possibly a slice of dairy-free cake.