screaming in the mirror
on the parts of the past where you were an unsympathetic female antagonist, and how to get over the story and on with your life where it all fits
In 2015 I went to a pub called Bear’s Tavern every day to do my morning pages and exercises in The Artist’s Way. I would start this ritual around noon, because that was about when I woke up, and Bear’s smelled like damp, sulphur and home. They had three martini glasses behind the bar. All three could usually be found at my table, because drinking $3 martinis at noon in a bar in Indiana made me feel like a poet. I was drunk most days, even though I’ve realised since doing The Artist’s Way sober Julia Cameron blatantly advises against this as an artistic process. But I was 21, depressed and didn’t think this was how my life would turn out.
The exercise that always stuck with me was when she asked you to write out a day in your life in some far off future where you’re living the life you want now. At that point in my life I was able to set aside my embarrassment at the fact I want things and wrote at length about a day in a seaside house where I would write short stories at a desk covered in shells and stones, an apartment in a city where I lived day to day by call sheets for different performances I was in at various theatres and opera houses, and, inexplicably, a universe where I lived in the wilderness and discovered new species of bugs and birds.
As much as there is no universe where I live in the wilderness and discover bugs and birds, and the fact I did this exercise on a long and slow bender, I’ve always called back upon this exercise for two reasons - 1) I don’t always have to look for my ‘ideal life’, I can focus more on how I want to spend my days. 2) Aspects of my ideal days are available to me now, and happiness doesn’t unlock at a certain achievement or status. With this in mind, alongside my week-long persistent, low-level annoyance at London which has made writing and reading difficult, I packed up five books, my laptop, and took 13 hours of buses to spend the week on Skye.