The Gunnas – Margaret Martin

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Synchronicity happens. What you put your attention on grows. The magnet of commitment. Etc.

On Wednesday my therapist told me to work on my self-worth. Self-love, even. Things will apparently start happening when I start to value myself instead of worrying about the world.
Today, Friday, in Catherine Deveny’s The Gunnas writing class, I was listening to Lucy the lawyer, and I can’t remember her precise words, but her expression and tone of voice was like a mirror of my own. The issue was what to write? Because when she was writing about clients or for clients the words flowed, but when she was trying to write for herself nothing came out.
It’s that service ethic thing. What you do for others is worthwhile. What you do for yourself is bottom of the priority list, just under unpacking the dishwasher. A waste of time that could be used for better things, to better purpose. This is a lifetime thing, a consequence of being brought up female, Christian, or just plain ‘good’. Think of others before yourself, don’t be selfish.
The next exercise was 5 minutes free writing. Don’t let your hand be still. So of course I started thrashing these ideas out with the stiff, painful muscles of my right hand in my doctor’s hand-writing. (I’m not a doctor, by the way.) When I do actually write, and stop doing online Sudoku, I trail off into political rants and social justice things of the kind you see hundreds of on the net. I suddenly realised that this is because saving the world – which of course, I can do by ranting online – is for others, not for me. It qualifies as unselfish. It’s not about me. First save the world, then start your novel. So the whole self-worth thing is exactly where it’s at for me, right now.
If I want to pacify the service ethic in me, I claim I am giving voice to the silenced. That is probably why it let me get away with my play. it had a strong, overtly feminist agenda. But perhaps giving voice is not a social justice thing, but curiosity? Perhaps I am looking to have experience through the eyes of the characters I am creating. Perhaps the silence/voice thing is just an excuse to cheat and have other people’s adventures with them … that is what acting is, after all, and I like that.
The next 5 minute exercise was stuff about what to write, whose writing I liked and random ideas. Nothing revelatory. What was important was that my handwriting changed. It flowed, got less jagged and cramped, got big and messy and assertive and easier to read. And my hand stopped hurting. My hand has been hurting while writing for about 40 years, which is why I love computers. It made my uni exams hell, and I had to take double the space to make sure that I could be read.
I can write.
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Strength Training
Once upon a time there was a little old lady. A very little old lady. She was precisely crotch high. On some people. She had to be careful where she walked, and could never, NEVER bump into anyone without looking.
Every day she would go for a walk in the park with her shopping bag. The walk in the park qualified as exercise, which the doctor had told her she should do. Aerobic exercise. The shopping bag qualified as strength training, but only on the way back, when it was full. Every day she went to the grocer’s, the greengrocer’s, and the butcher’s, bought enough food for the next 24 hours, and carried it home. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she carried it in her left hand for the first half of the walk home and in her right hand for the other half. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays she carried it in her right hand for the first half and in her left hand for the second half, because she like to lead a balanced life. She didn’t shop on Sundays. She ate leftovers.
One day she was walking home as she normally did, and she was exactly halfway there. She knew this because she was just shifting the bag from her right hand to her left (it was a Monday) when the sun disappeared. John Clarke describes the generously built gentleman as having a ‘fair-sized roof over the tool-shed.’ Well this wasn’t a roof so much as a second story. It should have had columns to prop it up.
And because of that she stopped. She turned around slowly and carefully, because this had happened before, and she knew she had to be careful or her face could end up in the wrong place.
But when she turned around, she saw, instead of a trouser crotch, two lumps in the trouser legs. She couldn’t figure out what they were, and stood stock still for what seemed like forever.
Until finally, a voice from way up high said, ‘Can I help you with that bag, little lady?’
She looked up. Way up. Although she was used to that. Way up there, past the knee lumps, the trousers, the belly, the belt, the man boobs and the beard, a voice was coming out of a comfortable-looking face.
‘Well, actually,’ she said, ‘No, thank you. It’s my strength training, you see.’
‘How interesting!’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied. She turned back. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Could I see you again, perhaps?’
‘I come here every day,’ she said,’ and walked on.
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