Just like the Four Tops

For years I was trying to figure out what I’d be doing as a, “Career! Career! Career!” as Stephan Malkmus sings in Cut Your Hair. In my third year of university, as I was diligently working towards my BA in English Lit.(“instead of law or something more practical”), I did in fact get a new haircut, which maybe was my 1^st mistake, the song does not suggest this. Also, by diligently working towards my degree I mean actually reading some of my setworks, some of the time or only partly. Come to my fourth year and still not knowing what to do, I just floundered really, it happens.

Only after much trial and error and tears and more new hair cuts was I able to see somewhat more clearly. One of the few things I’ve been able to ascertain in my 27yrs of being alive, 25 of which were spent on cloud cuckoo cuckoo land, I do the things I love without even thinking about it. If you know me perhaps the first thing that will come to mind would be talking, because I do it a lot and about all things! However, there are a few other things to add to this list like cooking, singing and writing. I am obsessed. I have spent countless nights just thinking about food, fantasizing about recipes I desperately want to try out. In fact, one of my favourite things to do is to read menus, those little takeaway pamphlets bring me untold joy. As for singing I just do it whilst doing just about anything. Count your blessings if I’m not comfortable with you yet, because I’m afraid I’ll irritate you with my incessant singing. Don’t worry this won’t last very long, because soon I’ll be annoying you with the latest song I love.

Writing has been a bit different though. One of the things that characterised being a student is writing, all the time. And in my case it was writing about writing about writing etc etc. By the end of an unfinished masters I had had enough of it. Before that I imagined that oneday I would possibly write, but after 2½ yrs of what felt like fruitless research and … writing, I all but jettisoned the idea. Understandably, I was smarting from my failed experience, “I shall never write again!” I wrote to a trusted friend. One of the things I had to get over was the thought that I hadn’t finished my masters because I was dumb and couldn’t write. I didn’t dislike writing I was simply afraid of it because I thought that I was genuinely bad at it. But much like food and singing – I couldn’t stop myself. When I go through my old stuff, there are notebooks of writing. A lot of the time there wasn’t anything concrete, just thoughts, ideas or quotes. There are also my diaries and letters written to friends.

About a year down the line and I was starting to feel happy and healthy again. I slowly started writing things and having ideas for things to write. Ag, but it wasn’t serious, it never is, right? Then I read Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet I think, like many before me, I felt as if I was reading something written especially for me. Sometime after that I found a gift given to me by a Sunday school teacher of mine. It was a diary and on the inside she’d written something very special, “I want to be the first to read your book!” I’d completely forgotten about this. I couldn’t have been more than 9 and what got me at the time was that this message was written in fancy handwriting. What got me now, almost two decades later, was the fact that even then I was talking about being a writer. There are those unfortunate moments in our young lives when an unwitting adult puts into question the veracity of that which you love most. This was the exact opposite of that and I think it’s something that has stuck with me, without me even realising it. In a big way I’m writing because of it, because an adult took a little girl seriously and went to the trouble of putting it down on paper.

The cheesy conclusion is this - if you love something you just do it. Not because you’re good at it or because people will praise you for it but because in the words of Orange Juice, “Just like the Four Tops, I can’t help myself!” Clap! Clap!