to the barricades of Heaven where I'm from

Barricades of Heaven - Jackson Browne.

There’s a reason behind what we do. There’s a reason why writers write, why painters paint & a whole host of others. I found out the reason why people work in mental health this week. There’s a patient on the ward I’m at, who came in suicidally depressed, previous suicidal attempts, with both suicidal and homicidal ideation. She’s a wee woman who doesn’t really take up much room. I had to go through her belongings , de rigueur for mental health, feeling like the worlds’ worst cad as I pawed through her stuff, plucking needles (sewing, not IV) from her bag. She sat in the chair, slumped in it rather, like all the world had fallen in on her shoulders. She didn’t care about anything I was saying & the inane chatter you use to cover up long silences just echoed. I’ve never seen anyone so fundamentally depressed. Anyone who thinks depression is fiction should have taken a look at this woman, it was written in every bone of her body.

As the day went by she laid on her bed, turned her face to the wall and that was it. She cried and slept. A little later she came out of her room but she curled up on a chair and went to sleep again. When she didn’t sleep she cried. I felt sorry for her, it physically hurt to know someone was in so much pain they could react like that. The next day her depression began to annoy me because it wasn’t changing. She didn’t even seem like she was trying. It frustrated me because I was making all the effort and she wasn’t doing anything in return. I wanted to grab her and ask her if anyone was home. Obviously I didn’t.

On the third day I was chatting with another patient, discussing how writing is cathartic. She started to listen in. I was talking about a stream of consciousness & how interesting it would be to read some of theirs. She asked what a stream of consciousness was & startled me. I wasn’t expecting her to initiate a conversation. When I told her, she smiled, laughed and kept talking to me. It wasn’t the fact that she’d kept talking, it was that smile and that laugh that got me. It was like the sun coming out. All of a sudden I could see the person underneath the mental illness, all of a sudden there was hope. All of a sudden someone lifted the cloud on depression & I realised that was the reason why people work in mental health – to see that smile. I’ve never been so impacted by a smile before. It made everything worthwhile to see her grin at me.

I’m a student nurse so I’ve done a few pracs by now. I’ve seen babies born (which is NOT all flowers and beatnik love. There’s blood EVERYWHERE.) I’ve stood at the foot of a patients bed and tried to keep from crying when I knew the diagnosis and they didn’t, not yet. I’ve talked to a man who died three days later. I’ve watched pregnant women with needle marks up their arms ask for a cigarette and valiantly tried not to strangle them ( I ended up walking away from the patient & refusing to deal with her) but nothing hit me as much as that beautiful smile on my patient. That’s the reason why we do it. Everything made sense.

It made me realise there’s a reason behind it. I love mental health because I love that smile. I love writing because it feels like its woven through me. And in moments when I read back over my stuff & wonder if its any good I think about what Paul said to the Ephesians – ‘live the life God called you to live’. I want to live a life of purpose, my friend Denise asked a question on Facebook recently – were we living lives you could tell stories about? I want the life of purpose where you can tell stories. A purpose is a reason. My reasons are falling into place.

Oh & the fact I get to spend hours with a hot gangster doesn’t hinder either.

The Ancient Mariner Defence

‘But still the fates will leave me my voice
& by my voice I shall be known’ Ovid

While trying to appear like I was actually doing something at work yesterday, Alex asked me how I wrote. After responding in my usual asinine way and saying “With a paper and pen” she repeated the question & said she didn’t know how someone made themselves sit down and write, why they would or what they’d write about. She put me on the spot & made me answer the question properly.

I plead The Ancient Mariner Defence: Because the story took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go.

I didn’t think that one up all by myself. In keeping with my love of everything Margaret Atwood I’ve been poring over Negotiating with the Dead, her work on writing. So many books I’ve read on getting yourself ready for agents/publishers and the like are almost mercenary and force you to think of your book as a product. Atwood reminds us why we write & redefined my whole belief in myself as a writer. I adore her to bits and would staple myself to her if this were not both disturbing and illegal. Dear Margaret Atwood’s lawyer; of course I’ll stay 100 yards at all times. She used the above quote as an explanation for why we write.

For those of us who did not have Coleridge shoved down our throats in high school (a fact for which I am eternally grateful. CJ Cherryh however is another matter) The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner is an epic poem focusing on a mariner doomed to tell the same tale over and over. It involves Fate, an albatross, lots of dead sailors reanimating themselves but mostly, is about how the mariner is taken over by the story. It compels him and won’t let him go until he’s told it.

So I answered Alex the same thing. Because the story took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. My two main characters both have voices (naturally. It’s not a book on mutes) but they’re voices implanted in either ear that whisper. Santangelo’s is loudest. I tried to explain to Alex what it was like; that I have a Mob Boss in my ear whose voice I can hear like he was slouched against the wall next to me, cigar in hand and boots clicked together. That I don’t really get any say in what he wants to do or say. His voice is his own, he talks and I write. Ronnie’s the same. I don’t sit down and think right...here’s what I’m doing. I should have a beginning, middle and the end. Somewhere there should be conflict etc. I don’t get that. I get scenes that make me reach and scribble no matter what I’m doing, I hear Saint talking and I go to write. My muse is a lovely, mussed up, sociopathic Mob Boss with dark eyes and grizzly whiskers that I wouldn’t change for the world. My muse is an ice cold woman with golden eyes that I love like I love myself. And I do.

That’s why I answered with Margaret Atwood’s line and why Atwood’s right. I know why I write – because the story takes hold of me and won’t let me go.

Alex replied, “Spoken like a true writer.”