The Pause

STOP…. And digest

Every time I go to the cinema, I am shocked. The film ends and then, right at the start of the credits, the lights come on and SO many people get up! It doesn’t matter what the film is, it doesn’t matter what’s just happened. So many people are up, on their feet, that’s that then, onto the next. Don’t you need a moment to digest? I want to shout. Don’t you want even a second to process this piece of art, the characters, the way their story ended, to think about where their lives go now, to think about the slice of life we just witnessed and why it was that slice served to us and what that slice was saying? When did we stop appreciating the pause?

I listen to a lot of audio books when I’m driving. Same thing, the audiobook ends, instantly they are thanking you for listening, reading credits - fine, I understand this. I’d rather be left to let the last line echo, but I can appreciate a credit sequence, can feel grateful for the work of all those acknowledged. But then - then another random audio book, unselected by me, starts playing a sample. STOP! I am still in the thrall of the world I just left! I am digesting the last line. I am, after the journey this writer had taken me on, letting it all sink in, feeling the shape of the story, considering how satisfied I am with the ending. Sometimes I may be crying. I am not in a place for a brand new beginning, one I haven’t chosen or asked for and know nothing about. If I don’t stop it, it will play sample after sample, beginning after beginning. All I want is peace.

I am in a pause place myself, creatively. It’s the opposite of instinctual, but I’m beginning to see it’s not only okay, it’s necessary. I have just sent a long worked on novel out into the void that is agent submissions. I sat down, after sending, to look at the short story collection I’m working on with Catherine Lovett. I read everything and decided I’m a terrible writer and should never write again and realised I need it - the pause.

We think if we’re not creating as creatives then we are wasting our time. But maybe we just need the pause? I think of the bit in Kiki’s Delivery Service where she loses the ability to fly. She goes to the woods with the artist, who says sometimes she can’t draw, so she doesn’t, she does other things and it all comes back.

So. I bake. I pick cherries from the tree in the garden and soak them to remove the worms. I work through my pile of alterations, I package up paintings, I read, I go for walks. On one of my walks, I see a badger. 5.30 in the evening, fully light, a badger. A BADGER. Unconcerned by my presence, he snuffles through the leaves mere metres from the path. The path not far from the dual carriageway, not far from the suburban streets. I could so easily have missed him, if I had left five minutes later, if I had gone for a longer walk, if I had driven to the sea. As it is, I stand, mouth open, silent, as he nudges through the leaves. His fur almost bristly at the edges. His loping, happy seeming gait. His focus on the floor, the leaves nosed aside. His stark black and white striped face, glinting eyes. He is beautiful. One of the best things I’ve ever seen.

Without the pause, I could have missed him. Perhaps the pause is itself the reward for hard work, for engagement and focus, for falling into a story. It is only in the stepping back that we see the value.

So I end the week, not with an agent, not with a publishing deal. Not with a new novel begun or a short story polished or a pile of new paintings, but with something else equally valuable: a badger, white striped head lifted for a moment from the leaves, staring right at me, almost unseeing, grey backed, thick furred - right there, in front of me, the unbelievable.

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