If it’s handwash day, and you have a wet bra hanging on the clothesline and the hook end is pointing down, and you walk past the line just as a fresh breeze blows through, and you have dreadlocks, it doesn’t end well.
Likewise, if you are both a parent and a performer, things may not go the way you expected. Let’s take last week’s Storytelling event as an example. At 7:30 pm, a little earlier than expected, I stood in front of an audience of an unknown size and spoke for ten minutes into a microphone. Two large spotlights set amongst the spectator seating highlighted the storytellers, which meant none of us on the stage could see anything past the microphone. I had no idea how many or how few people were watching the performance.
I knew my friend Kylie was there because she had come to the edge of the grass stage and called out and waved. I was pleased that at least one person who didn’t live in my house had come to watch me. I was aware that she was to my right, about three-quarters of the way along the tiered limestone seating that rose up and away from the stage. I knew my husband and sons were probably there, but I could not tell which shadowy outlines were theirs. I made sure I spoke to all areas of the seating, to the audience I assumed was listening to us.
The story telling went really well. I was worried I would forget the fourth paragraph, but I didn’t. I had two lines in different parts that built onto each other, and I remembered both. I didn’t race or forget where I was going. I even felt extremely calm, which I believe resulted from the support I had received during the journey and the prayers I knew people were upholding me with. As I approached the end, I felt relief and delight that I had managed to keep 1700 words in my sometimes-iffy brain and bring them all out in the right order.
After all five storytellers had finished their presentations, people came up to the stage to say hello. I received positive feedback and congratulations from people I knew and people I didn’t. One lady said she found my story very interesting because she used to work in neurosurgery. Another said she loved my words of connection and the thread of hope that ran through them. My biggest surprise was that a student from my class had asked his family to bring him to listen to the stories. It touched me that a teenager I had only met a few weeks ago wanted to hear what I had to say and how I said it and made an effort to come.
By the time I got home, I was elated but also tired and hungry. My family had left straight after the performance and grabbed their dinner on the way home. They were all sitting in the lounge watching YouTube Epic Fail episodes when I came in.
In my dream world, my family would have stopped watching TV, turned to me, and listened with rapt attention while I relived my evening and all that it entailed, right down to how it all felt for me to perform to an audience I couldn’t see. I don’t know if the contrast of expectation and reality was due to everyone bar me being male, or to them not having an interest in writing and performing, or whether the food and YouTube option was simply far preferable to listening to me, but either way, they had moved on and seemed to expect that I had too.
But I had invested hours and hours of work into my performance. I had lost sleep over it, worried over it, and overlearned my story to allow for my sometimes-faulty neural connections. I had laid myself bare and told strangers that I couldn’t even see about having brain surgery and how I found a new life between surgeries when the safest option would have been to stay home. I had conquered a deficit from my brain injury, where I had been unable to recall words on command. I at least expected a “well done – we’re so proud of you”. But nope. Instead, I was warmly welcomed to join them on the couch and eat my leftovers from the night before while laughing at people falling over and making unintentional fools of themselves.
The next morning, after my alarm dragged me from an exhausted sleep, I was getting ready for work when an extra alarm on my phone sounded. “Plumber, 8 am” flashed up on my screen. In the excitement of the evening before, nobody had remembered, and the house was a mess. It’s not unusual that the house was a mess, given that I’m the only person who keeps it in order and I had been busy, but having someone arriving within the hour meant it needed to not be a pigsty. At the very least, the areas the plumber would be working in had to be clean and accessible.
It was while I was leaning over the toilet bowl, pulling back my dreads so they didn’t dangle in the water, with my skirt tucked up into my underpants so it didn’t drape on the wet floor that I realised this is real life. The highlights are high, and they are wonderful, but they are momentary. The plumber didn’t care that I had wowed an audience the night before – he only wanted to find out why, suddenly, even toilet paper didn’t want to flush. The others in my household had their own concerns, too – one was already at work, one was on the way to his job, and one was getting ready to leave.
It was up to me to do everything they hadn’t done, despite everyone knowing what their household chores entail, so the plumber could have a satisfactory working environment. I knew that if I asked, their excuse would be that they’d come to see me instead of cleaning the house. I wouldn’t have bought it, though – they wouldn’t have been ready for the plumber regardless unless I had been home sitting on their tails telling them each and every thing they needed to do.
Thankfully, there is a happy ending. My workmates had invested in my journey, and everyone wanted to know how the evening had gone. I got to tell my version of events over and again as people came in at different times of the day. That went a long way to soothing the sting of not being lauded by those to whom my rebirth into a Creative doesn’t rate as highly as who I already am to them.
I have learned a lot from this experience. That I can remember words if I work hard to do so. That I have things to say that people want to hear. That fame truly is fleeting, and the world moves on very quickly. That it is important to be happy with yourself because other people might not realise how amazing your achievements are. And to never again book a plumber for the day after anything that I consider important.
A Glorious Mess 