Addicted to Society

I started (and abandoned) this blog a different self ago: a just-married Master's student at Cambridge, living in an ultra-modern shoebox flat and worrying about whether my husband would be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Today, I have been married for almost 8 years, my 9-month old baby is wrapped to my chest, I live in a blessedly rambly old house in Scotland, and I am worrying about... well, you all know what, and so we come to my reason for resurrecting this blog, despite my cringes at the writings of my younger self.

The title of this blog, 'Scribetur', means 'it will be written', and I'm conscious of two things right now, a few days into Britain's lockdown due to COVID-19. One is that right now, writing - communicating, reaching out - is more important than ever. The other is that, to be brutally honest, there isn't much I can do right now other than keep my daughter as happy as a baby can be kept... and write. So over the coming weeks my thoughts, feelings and observations of the COVID-19 outbreak will be written - partly for my own sake, but also partly, I hope, for the interest, entertainment, and maybe even comfort of others. 

My 'one last': a small, tactile object made by a friend and neighbour.

It was only a week ago that people were still merely being 'asked' by the government to practise 'social distancing'. I watched passers-by out of my window, took note of Facebook posts, and acknowledged my own inclinations, and knew it couldn't work. The problem is that humans - quite rightly, for we have evolved as social animals! - are addicted to social interaction. As such, it was far too easy to justify crossing the hazy barrier of social distancing. "It's just one trip to the shops". "It's just a walk with my Mum." "One time can't hurt, can it?" "Lockdown is coming soon - this is the last chance for a while!" I'm not being critical - I was just the same. On the Sunday before lockdown I went to the local pottery for an entirely non-essential purchase, for just one last chance to do something normal like browsing the shelves, and picking something out to mark my first Mother's Day. The problem, as of course governments across the UK rapidly recognised, is that 'just one' and 'one last' never really is - and that if everyone was having just one more, there would be a heck of a hangover waiting in the wings.

So now, here we are: cold turkey, more or less, with the exception of food shopping and a daily walk. It seems to me that those minimal interactions have become immensely charged: perhaps isolation means that your endorphins go into overdrive at the simple chance to talk to the butcher, or to wave across the street at a face you only vaguely recognise. The shops in the village I live in are all a stone's-throw from our front door, and in normal life I pick up stuff as I need it: I've now shifted to trying to get a big shop in one go. 'Shopping day', when I get to go to the grocer, the co-op, and the whole foods shop (a reliable source of organic pasta and bamboo toilet roll), all in the same trip, and to talk to three different shopkeepers, is a heady high. 

And then there is the craving. Before this, I would have defined myself as a sociable introvert: as a child, given the choice to go to a party or stay at home reading, I would regularly feel 'a bit tired' and just stay at home. And, to be honest, I'm probably coping better than I might be because of this: I really quite like my own company (and that of my wee family). At the same time, I have always been a tactile person, though as I've got older I've restrained it more. But now, I regularly find myself daydreaming about what it will be like when this is all over. To pat someone on the shoulder. To shake someone's hand. And it feels like a physical ache in the pit of my stomach when I think too long about seeing a friend, and giving them a giant hug.

But like I said earlier: humans are hardwired to desire social interaction, and that is ok. Relationships, connections - they are so very important, which is why this whole situation is so very difficult. So I'm going to continue enjoying my brief chats from behind a cordon, and continue looking forward to giving many of you reading this the giantest of hugs in due course. 

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A Rose By Any Other...?

By Dale, CC BY 2.0.

The canny-eyed among you may have noticed something strange about my Facebook profile; where, yesterday, it showed the name I shared with my husband, followed by my former name in brackets, today the order is reversed. This is because, a week ago, I changed my name by deed poll back to the name I was born with. As changing one's name back after marriage is perhaps slightly more unusual than the initial switch, I figured it was best to write a few words in explanation.

Firstly, to assuage any concerns, this is in absolutely no way indicative of any marital strife. Mr Scribetur and I continue to be as happy and (nauseatingly, some friends might say) in love as ever. Indeed, one of the motivations for this name change - or reversion - was the realisation that in this case, I really could have it all: I could continue to be just as good a life partner, whilst reclaiming the name under which I feel most comfortable.

A fair question to ask would be "well, why did you change it in the first place?" There are a several reasons, but I'll expand on the two main ones. Firstly, as many of my friends will remember, the events surrounding mine and Mr S's wedding were, to put it mildly, emotional and stressful. In the months following the wedding we faced the very real possibility that we would not be able to live together in the country that we both loved and were building careers in. At the time, taking his surname felt like a way of saying that I didn't care what the Home Office chose to do, that we belonged together and would be together in name even if they separated us in fact. I also, paranoidly, wanted to 'look' as much like a proper, committed wife as possible for a government body which I perceived as having a pretty traditional view of marriage. Looking back, I know that wasn't exactly a rational thought process but, as noted above, circumstances weren't really disposing me towards calm, dispassionate consideration.

Secondly, I was also just going with the flow. It seemed to be so uncontroversial a change that some institutions seemed to expect it as a matter of course - indeed, my undergraduate university automatically changed my name in the very short time between the wedding and the conferral of my degree results, without me even asking. Like I've said, a lot of things were pretty unstable and complicated right then, so I think part of me shrugged and just went with it as the simplest thing to do. However, the first consideration was certainly the biggest factor involved in my initial change of name.

Well, what's changed since then? For one thing, Mr S is now 'permanently settled' and well on his way to becoming a naturalised citizen, so that massive anxiety has been lifted from our shoulders. I no longer feel that I need to prove our relationship to anyone but him - and have, indeed, realised that my paranoid fear that our marriage would be deemed fake just because I hadn't changed my name was a somewhat foolish one, born out of much stress. So the greatest reason for the initial change no longer applies.

However, producing a deed poll and going through the rigmarole of changing one's name in the middle of a degree is a pretty active process, and it requires more positive motivations than just the sudden absence of a previous concern. Most importantly, I just missed my old name. I mentioned that my undergraduate university changed my name without me asking them to, which meant that, in spite of the fact that I had handed in every piece of coursework and sat every single exam under my unmarried name, my final degree certificate bore my new, married name. I attended my graduation ceremony a year after getting married, and it really, genuinely upset me that my original name was not the one called out as I processed up in gown and hood. I think I realised then that I wanted the name down the spine of my PhD to be the one I grew up with.

Secondarily, I've gradually come to realise the importance of my name to my professional identity. In one sense, this is about having a distinct professional identity from my husband - who has recently started working in the same department as me, in the same university as me, on the same subject as me, and on almost the same period. This situation is a dream come true; it's absolutely lovely both having an office in the same town, being able to travel into work together and meeting up for lunch. But this physical (and intellectual) proximity makes a shared name more noticeable, and the potential problems with it more visible. For better or worse, I want the work produced under my name to be judged by its own flaws and merits - without reference to the (far more excellent) work of my husband.

And that is the crux - under my name. I don't know if I'll be an academic forever, but I do know that I will always be writing, and hopefully publishing, something. In many cases, a surname isn't something that is used that often, or with much significance, and if this were just about the name on my bank card or driving license then I probably wouldn't bother. But my full name will appear at the top of any work I publish, and if I remain in academia, it will probably be what people I meet at conferences will remember me by. And, for me personally, it just feels right for that to be the name that it is both my old name, and my new name. 

Tragedy and Comedy

I don't usually feel deeply affected by the news of the passing of celebrities or other public figures. When the news pops up on Facebook - which is where I usually first come across it - I might feel, if I enjoyed their work, regretful that they will produce no more. Often, especially if I didn't have any great interest in them in life, any emotion I will have will be for their families; when Peaches Geldof died, it was Bob Geldof's simple, wrenching statement that "We are beyond pain" that gave me pause. But I often feel awkward at the idea of public grief for a complete stranger. I think this dates back to when my beloved Nana died in very close proximity to the Queen Mother. Young as I was, I vividly recall feeling almost angry at the tears shed on television for the Queen Mum by people who had never known her, barely days apart from my shedding my own tears at the funeral of a grandmother I knew and loved.

But this morning, I woke up to the news of the death of Robin Williams, and, for the first time at the death of a celebrity I never knew, I feel genuinely floored. I must have watched Mrs Doubtfire a dozen times over my childhood. One Christmas, I think, my family watched and recorded Hook, but then someone went and recorded over the first hour or so of the film. But the second half of that film I also watched over and over again. I remember both films arousing deep feelings in me. They were both, of course, exceedingly funny, but they both invoke great pathos - for example in the shuddering, humiliating moment in which 'Mrs Doubtfire' is unmasked, and in the sheer idea of Peter Pan as an adult grown. I noticed a comment on Facebook this morning which said that Williams' films would always be tinged with sadness from now on. But, I think they always were. But comedy tinged with sadness is true to life, and therefore a very special thing. And I feel real sadness that a man who touched on that truth is gone.

And then there is the manner of his passing. According to news reports nothing is confirmed, but it seems likely that his death was suicide. I have felt... oddly pleased, though that is not the right word, to see many people saying that he "died of depression". To me that seems a far more accurate, and empathetic, description of a life ended in the throes of depression. It was not so long ago that Christians who committed suicide were denied burial in holy ground for the blasphemy of taking a God-give life. But to speak of someone dying of depression is to express an understanding that they suffered from, and succumbed to, a terrible illness, even if it was not one of the flesh. There should be no more blame, and no less sympathy, attached to that person than there should be to someone who died of a physical illness.

But, there is blame somewhere. I feel so confused and angry that a man with wealth and fame and a loving family still died of depression, still could not be saved from his illness. I think of Robin Williams and I think of the people I know who suffer from the same illness, and I want to know where they would get help if they truly needed it. I feel angry that society is still only slowly moving towards an appreciation of mental illness as a genuine, often treatable affliction, and not something to be ashamed of, to not ask help for if you suffer from it. And I feel angry with depression, for the strength it has and the destruction it wields. Perhaps all the public understanding of mental illness in the world could not save some sufferers from dying of it.

So, for the first time ever, I have cried to hear of the death of a celebrity who I never knew, apart from through his comedy. The thought that a person who, indirectly, made my childhood self laugh and stop and think is gone is bad enough. But the thought that such a person died of an illness that left him with so little joy, and so little compassion for himself that there was only one thing he could do to escape it... that is what makes me cry. 

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A Postscript.

As I hope this essay expresses, everyone needs help sometimes, and there is no shame at all in that. Call a friend, call a family member, call the Samaritans (08457 909090). Do not suffer in silence. 

The sea, the sea

St Andrews Cathedral, with Rule's Tower in the
foreground.

My first thought for an opening sentence for this blog post was "there are many consolations for living and studying where I do", but on reflection that struck me as being rather more negative than I intended. I think I am happier, both domestically and academically, living in Crail and studying in St Andrews than I ever have been before. So perhaps I shall say instead, there are some unexpected moments that provide sudden and lovely illumination to a daily life that is already pretty contended.

Mr S and I experienced one such moment a few days ago, whilst at a loose end due to the later-than-usual opening of the university library that day. Fortunately, St Andrews is a pretty lovely place to wander around - I could probably spend hours wending through the gravestones in the old cathedral site, absorbing hundreds of long-gone names, all in the skeletal shadow of the ruins that provide the archetypal image of the St Andrews skyline. That day, however, we decided to wander down past the castle to watch the waves rolling in on the (imaginatively-named) Castle Sands. However, the sight of a great flurry of waves breaking on the pier down by East Sands drew us further along the coastline, and down onto that narrow stone spur, which at high tide on a blustery day looked almost impossibly fragile against the great weight of the sea.

We just stood and watched. We didn't venture too far out - unlike the people standing at the very end of the pier, we were none to keen to experience the sensation of the sea dumping an entire wave's-worth of water upon our heads, as it did repeatedly during the time we watched. The waves crashing against the terminus of the pier seemed to almost fling themselves up its sides, creating a great plume of water which was then caught by the wind, fully dowsing the outcrop and any foolish enough to stand upon it. Even the point at which we had planted ourselves, barely a third of the way along the pier, seemed to affront the waves so much that every fourth or fifth surge made a valiant attempt to reach us, with water roaring up and onto the pier-top a metre further down the narrow way.

Looking towards St Andrews Castle. I didn't even try to capture
the sensation of looking out from the pier - concerns about the
bad combination of water and technology aside.

Although occasionally distracted by the rushing water that seemed so keen to make our close acquaintance, we spent most of the time gazing further out to sea, watching the hypnotic movement of the water, as smooth, concave rifts grew higher and higher - quite incredibly high - until they broke into a frothing and raging crest. And then there were the cross-currents, as waves which redounded against the pier surged back to meet their fellows at right angles, causing mountains of spray to fly up where they collided with one another. And then there was the noise - booming, crashing, whooshing. It was like watching fireworks as a very small child: every huge wave was a new surprise, every plume against the pier a reason to exclaim in sheer joyful surprise.

One of the concepts which I know I'm going to have to confront and analyse in my work on early modern reactions to mountains is that of 'the Sublime' - the idea that there is a certain type of aesthetic response to certain aspects of nature, in which the sight of something great but slightly terrifying or horrifying inspires a type of overwhelming awe. I have problems with the idea of using the category to judge past reactions to nature, but I'm also not sure I could find another word to describe the feeling of standing, tremulous and fixed, upon a man-made outcrop of rock, and staring out at a display of the roiling power and energy of the sea. It was frightening - every one of those waves would have swallowed me whole had I been standing beneath them - but also thrilling, and joy-inspiring. It was, in a word, sublime.

Being a PhD student can, I am told, sometimes be a hard slog. I am fortunate that I have not yet encountered the moment in my research where I feel that sheer exhaustion with my own topic and research. But, when I do, I will try to remember to prescribe myself a moment or two upon the pier, on a wild and windy day, breathing in the breath-taking. Because there is something about the sublime that energises the spirit. 

Coming out of my wardrobe

This is a post that has been rattling around at the back of my mind for months, but it wasn't until I watched the video below that I was finally able to get together the guts necessary to write it. I would really, strongly recommend watching it if you can spare the time - it's a wonderful and sympathetic take on something that, as the speaker points out, affects almost everyone - even if in different ways.

So, I'm coming out of my 'closet'. It is not, as Ash Beckham puts it, a rainbow-coloured one, and as I think it has certain fairly British qualities, I'm going to call it a wardrobe. My wardrobe has the picture of a massive black dog painted on the front of it. I never know quite the right verb to use. I have? I experience? I suffer from? I live with? Whatever the verb, the noun is simple: depression.

I'm not going to write today at any length about how I experience - or deal with - depression, but rather want to discuss why not talking about it became a 'wardrobe' in the first place.

To some extent, I guess it's cultural, in two directions. Internally, I suspect I have a certain amount of the British stiff-upper-lip - or at least the British mental cringe at the thought of doing anything so forward as to declare my emotions publicly, or to bother anyone else with the fact that I'm experiencing difficulties with them. Externally, there's a perception I have that people in general might not be sympathetic to 'confessions' of depression; that there might still be people out there who think I'm just being pathetic, need to get over myself, or am even just making it up to get attention. 

Of course, this perception of an external negative attitude towards depression may also be a symptom of depression. Something that I have increasingly come to realise over the past few years is that, from my point of view at least, depression is a remarkably self-preserving illness. It doesn't want to be found out. Obviously this is a ridiculous statement on some levels - my depression does not, of course, have mental autonomy to scheme against me - but I think it holds a grain of truth. Depression often brings with it strong feelings of worthlessness and shame. If you feel worthless, why should you seek help? Only people with 'worth' deserve aid or care. And if you feel ashamed, why should you speak out - afraid as you are of being judged for what you admit?

And that is why I am writing this post. I am having a good stretch of days in the midst of a bad patch and I'm feeling ready to start trying to train that bloody dog. The lessons might not stick, of course - another truism I'm coming to learn about having depression is that expecting a one-time 'cure' may not necessarily be the best way to think about it - but at least it might retain the memory of them next time it comes back, and be more promptly quietened. So, I am coming out of my wardrobe, and speaking out. Because I am worth something, and having depression is nothing to be ashamed of.

Don't be afraid to step out of your closet, whether you have to fight through prejudice or, perhaps, the metaphorical Hound of the Baskervilles in order to put your hand against the door. It - and you - are always worth it.

Because a thesis just wasn't enough...

This year, for the first time, I am taking part in something that I have long been tempted by: I am 'doing' NaNoWriMo 2013. NaNoWriMo, if you haven't heard of it, stands for 'National Novel Writing Month', i.e. November, during which participants are encouraged to write a novel of 50,000 words or more. 

As this blog might imply, I truly enjoy writing, and I've felt a little sad over the last few years that I haven't invested much time in writing fiction, which is really where a love of writing all started for me. When I was sixteen I wrote and quite literally 'self-published' - i.e. printed out and bound up using an industrial stapler - a novel about the stone gargoyles and stained-glass angels of a village church coming to life on Midsummer's Eve, and sold it to friends, family, teachers, and anyone else who could be guilt-tripped into paying £3.50 for it in order to raise funds for a trip to China. I even sent it off, unsolicited, to a number of publishers, resulting in a cherished sheath of rejection letters.

So, this year I decided that this would be the year I finally did NaNoWriMo. To my pleasant surprise, when I mentioned this to Mr S he said that he had been thinking the exact same thing, so we're currently doing it together and cheer-leading / guilt-tripping one another on.

I am having a massive amount of fun. Perhaps out of an unconscious desire for an antithesis to the planning-heavy early days of the PhD, my brain produced an excellent premise for a novel on the night of October 31st, so rather than writing up any of my ready-plotted ideas I found myself leaping straight in on November 1st with absolutely no idea of where I was headed. I am now 12,839 words in and have only a hazy idea of what the next chapter will contain. Don't even ask me about an ending. But, instead of sleeping in for an extra half an hour in the morning, or falling asleep in front of yet another xojane article at the end of the day, I'm writing and disappearing into this whole fictional world.

It's also, ironically, making me both more productive in my academic work, and helping me to feel less stressed about the PhD. Mr S and I have got into the habit of trying to write half our daily 'quota' (you have to write at least 1666 words a day - plus an extra 20 at the end! - to get to 50,000) first thing in the morning, and it certainly wakes you up. The feeling of achievement of bashing out 1000 words before breakfast also certainly helps to keep up morale when turning to read Foucault (don't ask). And as for stress, well, let's just say that after writing 12,000 words in six days, writing 80,000 words over three years doesn't seem quite so bad. Obviously there's a lot more to a PhD than just writing by the skin of one's teeth, as I am with NaNoWriMo, but I also feel much happier about my initial plan of front-loading my research and having a real 'writing up' period in my last year (a tactic that is more unusual in the humanities than in the sciences, I think).

Is there anyone else out there doing NaNoWriMo? How are you finding it?

Next time... if I work up the courage, I might give you a synopsis of my novel, or at least the fifth of it that I've written so far!

Once Upon a Time on the Internet...

Last night, after a glass or two of wine, and via a facebook link, I ended up reading College Humour's (extremely funny, but rather Western-centric) 'Facebook History of the World'. I had read bits of pieces of it before, but never all the way through, and I blinked a bit at this one:

I blinked because it's a little disconcerting to suddenly realise that your mind contains the memory of something so trivial. I remember - just - the days when the internet quite literally came on a CD. And it got me thinking about how much the internet has changed even within my lifetime. It struck me that one of the weirdest things is not how much the internet has developed, but how much I, at least, take the current status quo for granted. I haven't thought about my childhood experience of the internet for, quite literally, years.

I know that I can't exactly claim to have any memories of the 'birth' of the internet as a technology, but I think I certainly fall into the age bracket of people who were children when personal computing and using the internet started to become more and more common within the home. I remember my family's first computer - I think for some reason I called it 'Sally' - with its screen that was massive not in width but in depth - and the excitement in discovering that, unlike my grandfather's slightly older computer, it showed colours that were not black and green. And dial-up internet! Just listen to this sound clip. Doesn't that take you back? It's hard to imagine that eight-year-old me happily waited up to a minute or two just to get onto the internet, when twenty-two-year-old me gets antsy when Gmail takes more than 5 seconds to refresh -heck, when a large PDF document takes more than ten seconds to download!

And then there was the fact that, in the first few years at least, my parents had the type of internet that you paid for by the minute. I seem to recall that they agreed a tariff with me and my brothers whereby we would pay a certain contribution to the cost of the internet per minute (I think it was maybe 2p per minute?). Speaking of childhood memories, does anyone remember the Wonka chocolate bars and sweets that were around in the late 90's? Gobstoppers and chocolate bars with crackling candy in the middle? I think the packets advertised a website that had games on it, and I would save my pocket money to spend ten or fifteen minutes playing games on that site. I don't think I was really aware that the internet contained anything else.

It's very strange to think that a technology that seemed, at the time, a bit slow and a bit silly is now such a large part of my daily life. I backup my work to 'the cloud', I write blog posts in my browser, I stay in touch with friends and family via email, and so on. It's pretty rare that I ever happily 'work offline'. (Ah! Another memory: the good old days when webpages contained so little information that your computer would 'save' the pages you'd loaded automatically and you could look at them again without being connected).

However, if it's strange to think that technology we now take so much for granted was - so recently - just a fifteen-minute game when we were children, it's even stranger to realise that, 'even' today, the majority of the world is not on the internet. Obviously, some might argue that other more basic problems, such as world hunger and disease, need to be dealt with before we start worrying about digital equality. But perhaps it's striking to realise that, for all the talk of this being a 'digital age', accessing the internet - be it in ancient dial-up form or through high-speed broadband - is still a privilege. And perhaps that, just as much as amusing childhood memories of AOL cd's, should remind us not to take it for granted.