Kathryn Hahn

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I have watched the trailer for "Tiny Beautiful Things" twice in the last week. There is a part of me that feels the need to apologise for such an indulgence, but most of me remains at a loss to explain what exactly has caused this slide into the sentimental mush I usually eschew. It's not simply that I love Kathryn Hahn and her steely gaze, or that I caught glimpses of verdant landscapes in the background of a few scenes. I think it's the fact that in the trailer, Kathryn Hahn as Cheryl Strayed looks as conflicted and distraught as I do right now. 

No-one is approaching me to write an advice column (for which you can breathe a sigh of thanks), but I shoot a version of Kathryn's look of consternation at the occasional person who suggests I may be doing a reasonable job of living. 

Me? I want to say. And again, me? 

My bookshelves are dusty and my bathroom is hosting mould I can't reach on my stepladder and I can't bring myself to tell my landlords that the oven has stopped working. These are only the external markers of an interior life that feels dusty, mould-infested and full of broken parts that need to be replaced. 

I spend days and nights thinking, worrying and dreaming about what it means to live a good life. 

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to return to being a whole person. Reading was mentioned, so was writing. Dating, too. The past few weeks have included more reading, stilted attempts to speak French on the drive home and even a singularly bad date, none of which I have regretted. I have become slightly more adept at closing the work laptop lid envers huit heures and crawling into bed with a book and my journal. I can feel a former self reaching and returning to me, slowly showing me parts of who I have been. 

I am not worried about the past. It's the future that keeps me up at night. 

The other thing that strikes me about Kathryn/Cheryl is that although she is clearly tortured about her writing, she writes anyway. Her feelings of ineligibility and unsuitability don't stop her from persisting with her column, and this persistence (of the real-life Cheryl Strayed) has led to me unashamedly ordering a copy of Tiny Beautiful Things from my local independent bookstore. 

I can never disassociate Cheryl Strayed (and now, Kathryn Hahn) from the blistering essay, 'Write Like a Mother******" which appeared on The Rumpus over a decade ago. I re-read it tonight as I was thinking about this piece, and am struck anew by the two words she counsels Elissa Bassist to put on her imaginary chalkboard - 'humility' and 'surrender'. When it comes to humility, I think I possess it in relation to estimations about my writing abilities. I am not great and I am not terrible and I have reconciled myself to that. 

But I haven't gone any further to acknowledge the fact that, with mileage and exertion, I would like to become a great writer. And I haven't commenced the slow, steady work required to one day produce great writing. I have left my ambition and sense of calling towards writing unacknowledged, languishing inside my dusty, mould-infested, junk-filled self. 

*****

I have written several posts in the last year or so that run along the lines of "no more". I will make this happen! I've said. Writing is important to me! And yet, nothing.

My inchoate writing abilities haven't been coaxed into fullness by declarations. So I'm not making one.

What I have done is added "write for thirty minutes each day" to my rule of life. I have told my best friend, S, to check in with me about whether or not I've been writing each day. I'll be here, every morning, typing out words for the zero to twenty people who peer into this space. 

See you tomorrow.