This month has been a hard month. I’ve had the sort of month that is not normally shared on social media or written about in blogs, it’s really not been very pretty or inspiring to read about! In time I will share it for time is renowned for its healing properties and eventually the story will be ready to be told. It’s enough today to remind everyone that the ‘back of house’ view of each of our lives that only those closest to us get to glimpse is, to a person, messy and imperfect and sometimes a bit heart breaking.
Thinking about the ‘centre stage’ versus ‘back of house’ concept is a saviour in weeks like these. I’ve felt a strange guilt when writing about the good things that have been happening in the middle of all the mess. It has felt dishonest somehow. Like a lie. Like I shouldn’t be sharing the garden and the hikes and celebrating Daylight Saving Time. As if one shouldn’t be seen without the balance of the other. And yet, both the upside and the downside are true and co-exist quite easily. What is happening out the front on the stage for all to see happens at the same time and in the same life as what happens in a more private sphere behind the closed curtain. Aren’t all our lives like that?
We lived in Canberra for nearly ten years, a place I love dearly so none of that capital city sledging, thank you very much! One of the quirks of town planning there is that houses in the original inner suburbs were centred on the concept of neighbourhoods. The idyll was that families would share common spaces and children would play safely in communal yards, the proverbial village would exist in suburbia. It’s a beautiful social dream. In reality what it meant was that our front doors faced the back and our backdoors were our less than appealing street view. You could drive along and literally see the backs of houses exposed for all to see, for front fences are also banned… no hiding here! You felt as though you should avert your eyes to be polite! You drove up to our house to be greeted by our laundry door and the plumbing for kitchen and bathroom. By the time we lived there the clotheslines had found new ground out of sight but the sense of seeing into the private spaces of people from the footpath remained. The result was that centre stage literally WAS the back of house!
Proof that both are one and the same…
In my musings about coming home I’ve thought a lot about how the same thing happens in a workplace. As a health professional I had a role to play and at times I quite consciously felt the need to assume that costume and perform my lines. In the 1990s, that dark age before the internet was everywhere, I was trained to protect my personal life and privacy zealously. My patients were not to have my address nor know anything much about my family. It was as much about my safety as it was about maintaining a professional distance that respected their confidentiality. I was slow to get an email address and reluctant to join a social media platform as these deeply ingrained protective habits proved hard to modify.
Since leaving work I find I am left now with only one role and, while I’m revelling in the freedom and opportunity that brings me, I miss the ability to don an alter-ego and leave ‘me’ behind every now and then. Today I crave that anonymity. I know I need to leave the house and mingle in society. I’ve left the dogs with the kidults with strict instructions to hang out the washing and feed the chooks (note – it didn’t happen but all animals survived).
And so here I am at the library. Within moments I am set up in the corner tucked behind the coffee shop, my closest company two other souls with computers open and ear pieces in. I don’t use headphones, I like to hear the noise around me and watch the goings on from my place of quiet.
As you know, I’m a BIG consumer of books and blogs and I love to read about the backstories of my favourite authors. So many of them take themselves to a local coffee shop where they set up to write all day sustained by copious mugs of coffee or chai. Susan Cain had me entranced with her memories of writing Quiet, that brilliant book about the life and strengths of being an introvert, from her local cafe.
Perhaps it’s just me but I can’t do it. I feel a sense of taking up another paying customer’s spot, a need to move on, a sort of guilt for using a public space as an office. Since Covid when time limits were imposed on eating places this personal belief was only strengthened and I rarely take myself to a cafe at all.
The library has long been my place of solace, a safe refuge. Here, again without anyone ever saying anything directly to me, I feel welcome. The library WANTS me to sit here with my computer, for as long as I have the urge, and I don’t even need to buy anything! I do anyway. Coffee is an important fuel and it makes me feel as if I have given myself a little pat on the back. The library is my local, my coffee shop, my source of social contact and the dealer of my drug of choice – books.
As I write I realise that clearly libraries are best visited on my own. No pressure to behave in any way, no commentary or conversation required, no lead role in this particular play. I can be an extra with a non-speaking part.
Today I’ve decided to employ that precious habit of mind-wandering as part of my prescription for treating this off-kilter mood I need to shake. People watching, it’s an intriguing pastime and the library is a great place to do it. I’m sure others are here seeking the same sort of refuge I do but there are just as many welcomed here with different agendas and needs. It’s busier here than usual as the weather is still overcast. Last time I was here it was still school holidays and there were groups of children doing craft activities about their favourite books. Around them, librarians and teachers making that happen dressed in loose flowing tunics, the only people wearing masks and still the happiest faces in the room
I see mothers with young children sharing a scone with jam and cream and choosing two books, no more, to take home this week. Families huddled around computers for access to the internet. I like to imagine they’re searching for something thrilling. Maybe they’re applying for a passport and planning that long awaited post-pandemic holiday. I hope it’s not something as mundane as online shopping or paying a bill.
A group of professionals wearing lanyards and holding iPhones wander through to look at the spaces. The men behind the coffee shop bench, hands busy and in constant movement, smile across at them.
Two people reading the newspaper, the real physical paper, spread out on the large tables in the middle of the room. Their glasses rise on their noses as they pore over the paper in a pose that reminds me of Saturday mornings.
The couple at the small table, one laptop open in front of them. She is interviewing him, asking questions, he’s musing and considering his responses carefully. When he speaks she types rapidly, nods encouragingly.
Teenagers sprawled on floor cushions flipping the pages of anime, backpacks against the wall nearby, waterbottles at their feet, iphones open in the other hand.
People wandering up and down the shelves of books, some with purpose knowing what it is they seek and others waiting for the muse to leap out and strike them. They know it will, they run their hand along the tops of books trusting completely that the right one will reach back if they are just patient enough to recognise it when it happens.
And then I see that there are solitary people with computers open and glasses on exuding an air of stay back, I am not interested in talking. Not with anyone. Unless you bring me another coffee. I see you, my people!
No-one tells us to be quiet. All are welcome, all are at home here. I pack away my laptop and gather my things ready to re-emerge into my usual role. Some months may test my natural balance but I can feel it settling back in the core of me where it needs to be to manage those ‘back of house’ tasks. I’ve got this.
I think we all suffer with the center stage versus the back of house realities of life. When asked “how are you?” no one wants to lead with some of the weighted realities life throws at us. I hope your next month is filled with more happy times than difficult. PS that scone looks great!
We absolutely all have this double version of ourselves. Behind the front door. Behind the mask. ‘In real life’. We just need to know it as normal! PS the scones at the library are sooooo good! And the guys at the cafe are hilarious fun.
Thank you for everything you do front of stage and away from the spotlight. I love your writing, I read it while having coffee outside with the dogs curled up nearby. It’s my Sunday version of reading the Saturday newspaper.
This made me blush, smile and get a wee bit teary all at the same time.☺️😊🥲