Me. You. a Diary

by Dawn French

  That last one is literally perilously dangerous … but, childishly, I can’t stop doing it, m’lud, even though I know it could end me.

  I suppose that if these are my growing-up ambitions, it’s entirely possible that I could achieve them. It’s just not that probable, because I’m unlikely to try that hard if I’m honest. You see, one of the best things about being sixty is that I know myself and I know what’s likely, and I’m not going to beat myself up about the unimportant stuff. I’m going to prioritize and scout about for stuff to do that makes me laugh, makes me cry right, keeps me on my toes, teaches me something new, or confirms something I hold dear. I’m going to seek out the quiet processes and I’m going to make my own small circles where I can enjoy all the little things thank you very much.

  BECAUSE …

  At sixty, I know that:

  All the small stuff makes the big.

  All the tiny minutes make one big life.

  Every minute properly matters.

  Live it BIG …

  Yea.

  1. NOTHING.

  In no particular order:

  1. Audience

  2. Husband

  3. Madonna

  4. Self

  You?

  1. ____________________________________

  2. ____________________________________

  3. ____________________________________

  4. ____________________________________

  •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

  NOVEMBER

  ‘Whenever I feel discouraged, I remember the words of my then three-year-old after she puked carrots on the floor: “I’m gonna need more carrots”’

  Jessica Valenti

  What a great kid! Spot on.

  Yes, that kid decided that when life gets tricky and messy, you have to refuel and head right back in, stronger and more determined.

  ‘I’m gonna need more carrots’ has become my mantra for those everyday shitastrophe moments.

  I need fuel for all kinds of unexpected big life stuff actually, and I am constantly surprised by how much I seem to have in my reserve tanks. Tanks I didn’t even know I had, until necessity required them. Tanks I reckon my mother had me fitted with secretly when I was young. Tanks just like hers. Tanks that magically re-fill themselves just as I believe they are about to be entirely empty. Tanks with enough for not just me, but anyone else in my family who needs some. Fuel to see us all through, eternally replenished.

  Which brings me to something else a tad fabulous I feel increasingly sure about. I didn’t know there was even terminology for this concept, but on reflection of course there is, because most methods that really REALLY work are already known. Humans have been sharing the good stuff for ages. Nothing is particularly new. (Except ‘Shewees’. They’re new. And abominable. Avoid. Unless you’re on the A303 just past Stonehenge, stuck in appalling traffic and have no blummin’ option, frankly. And even then, don’t be an idiot and do it when you’re jammed up next to a big lorry where the creepy driver can see right in and gives you a round of applause when you’re finished. That would be AWFUL …)

  Anyroadup, the idea I’m bangin’ on about is called ‘The Shine Theory’. Like I say, I didn’t know it even WAS a theory, but what I DO know is that, as a basic concept, it really works. More than that, I think it’s vital, and it’s this:

  When those around you, especially the younger those around you, are remarkable bright lights, don’t be intimidated by them or envious of them. Bring them in, surround yourself with them, support them and celebrate them. It’s like candle power: when you’re all together pooling the skills, the light is stronger, steadier and irrefutable, and, know what? … It feels fantastic, there’s so much to benefit from it for everyone. The first time I remember encouraging a couple of women to come into the fold and share their phenomenal talents was when we asked two young rapscallions called Sue Perkins and Melanie Giedroyc to write a script of their choosing (still waiting for that …) and failing that, to write some material for Fatty Saunders and me. We had never asked anyone to do that before, it was good to trust others, and it worked very successfully. Plus we made two new, most excellent chums. Nowt wrong with any of that, all good.

  It’s pointless to take someone else’s success or popularity as your own failure. It’s tons better to move closer to the warmth of their accomplishment, to snuggle in there where it’s rewarding and friendly, rather than slink off back to your cave, tail between your legs, feeling hurt and overlooked. Women are particularly adept at both of these behaviours, I find – being inclusive and celebratory and equally being hurt and feeling rejected and resentful. I’ve witnessed and indeed felt both, and certainly know which I prefer.

  I clearly remember when, after I backed out of a French and Saunders studio commitment last minute in 1991, due to the sudden arrival of our (adopted) baby daughter, which of course I wanted to keep private (nothing to hide, everything to protect), Jennifer heroically covered for me by taking the studio dates and hurriedly writing a tiny new sitcom called Absolutely Fabulous to fit into said dates. Of course it went on to be huge, and although she had saved my bacon, I felt a cocktail of emotions when it received such soaring praise. What was it? Jealousy? Arrogant incredulity that she could do so well without me? Feelings of rejection?

  Yes, probably an element of all these, but overriding all of those ugly, difficult emotions was something much bigger and better brewing away beneath. A mixture of pride and love. Pride in and for her talent. Love for the woman I knew as my darlin’ friend. Deep down, I knew that her success wasn’t my failure. Absolutely not, impossible, she was helping me to be able to be at home with my longed-for new baby. I knew knew knew that, but I also wanted to acknowledge the other, unwelcome, trickier feelings. I wanted them out of me. When she won a BAFTA for the first series, I sent her a huge bunch of flowers with a card which read:

  ‘Congratulations, you talented c**t xx’

  And that was it. Job done. All feelings expressed, laughed at, forgiven and understood.

  Then, and only then, when honesty was at the heart of it, could I watch and enjoy the show as a viewer, and even turn up on it every now and then.

  The lessons for me were twofold:

  1) Don’t allow a miasma of taking-it-personally despair to infect proper love-ful relationships.

  2) Find the sunny side in every tricky situation – it will DEFINITELY be there, but might involve some careful unearthing.

  So, for instance, when Fatty went off to do AbFab, and I did Vicar of Dibley, far from driving some kind of career/relationship wedge between us, quite the opposite happened. We both loved the different new projects, but we couldn’t wait to be back together, on familiar territory to catch up with the gossip and use the fresh energy. It made us appreciate everything we had together.

  I didn’t anticipate that.

  I would now.

  Because now, with experience, I would know that somehow, it’s going to turn out fine, better even, if I can just trust all the good stuff.

  Good stuff ALWAYS wins. Fact.

  And at the kernel of all good stuff is LOVE.

  We know it.

  We know it in our load-bearing bones and our pumping blood, in our every fizzing atom.

  As I get older, I know it more and I have become embarrassment-free about saying so. I realize I have become that boundary-less old bird who hugs for too long, takes your face firmly in her hands and tells you how much she loves you.

  Only if I do, of course.

  But if I do, I REALLY do!

  I don’t care if it’s gooey or soppy. I don’t care if it’s as wet as a mermaid’s Tena Lady, I am going into my sixties endeavouring to find the love in everyone I meet and everything I do.

  Deal with it, British!

  ‘Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you h
ate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place’

  Iain S. Thomas

  Being clever and powerful isn’t the only route to success. Empowering other people to be clever and powerful is properly valuable too. In that way, we can be the amplification for someone else’s possibly quieter, nascent voice. It works both ways, truly. Just as I think, ‘Oh look at this bright new young funny girl’, my next thought is ‘WOW, that’s a whole new way of thinking, I’m going to try that approach to see if it works for me too.’ It’s infectious, it’s how we grow each other well. All we are attempting to do is to be better humans than we were yesterday. If we manage that, however incrementally small, by my reckoning, THAT is success. Not to measure yourself by any other person, but to measure yourself only by the yourself you were before.

  Are you calmer?

  More confident?

  More astute?

  More fragrant?

  More generous?

  More informed?

  More healthy?

  More alert?

  More thoughtful?

  More patient?

  Are you happier, in ANY way?

  If the answer to any of these questions is yes in any tiny way, then I’d be putting the blummin’ bunting out and doing the loud clog dance of marvellousness to celebrate, because you tried. And it worked. You did something, and actions prove who a person really is. It’s all very well just talking about it (listen up, Frenchie), that indeed shows who you want to be, but actually DOING it? That’s the golden thing …

  Don’t forget, it doesn’t matter if you have wobbles every now and then, just remind yourself at those moments that:

  ‘I’m gonna need more carrots …’

  Remember THAT letter? The one you kept safe …

  Maybe read it again and think about posting it?

  DECEMBER

  Right. So …

  December.

  Russet and silver and gold and white.

  And red, of course.

  Acres of red. Bolts of it. Velvet. Cheerful and chummy and Christmas.

  All framed, for me, with a definite edge of black.

  I want to tell you something now, a difficult thing to own up to. But, pardon me, the prospect of Christmas makes me feel quite sad. This isn’t unique to me, I know that, but it’s a forbidden gloom, a bah humbug doomy doom that dare not speak its name.

  Sorry to remove YOUR name, tiny baby Jesus so new and holy in your manger (as a kid, I used to believe it was pronounced ‘anger’ with an ‘m’ on the front, like male anger … ‘manger’. I was anxious that you were laid in all your bands of swaddle amongst all that explosive testosterone) … BUT, for me and many others, it is Sadmas, I’m afraid. Every year I hope it will be different, that when I catch sight of the first twinkly tree or jolly Santa, the requisite joy and excitement will kick in. I want that very much, to catch the merry, to ride it like a wave right from the first whiff of mince pie.

  Holly, ivy, mistletoe, yew … come on, Dickensian Christmas cheer, happyslap me in the face and wake up my Yuletide joy, will ya?

  The lucky thing is that I THINK I understand it a bit. I’ve only gone a bit Scroogey like this in the last five years. That timing correlates to the death of my darlin’ mum.

  So, as the year scurries to its close, and as these twelve months and I both surrender to our tiredness, the filter is off my grief. I forget how sad I am about this until my muted hurting heart reminds me around now. This is supposed to be the time of smiles and laughter, of goodwill and mirth, and somehow all the giddy celebration is an affront to my idling melancholy. I want to be left alone to wallow in my mid-winterness. As the teatime darkness of the nights draws in around me, I want to sit for a while in the shadows. I want to take time to notice that being without a mum, without any parent, even at this silly supposed to be grown-up age, can sometimes render a person inexplicably afraid and homesick.

  This is the time of year that all of us secretly enjoy returning to the dynamic of our family, as it was, stuck in amber at when we were most happy. For me, that’s when I was about twelve. That’s when absolutely NO-ONE expected me to cook or organize or be responsible for anything at Christmas. The biggest task I had was to wrap up a Snoopy book for my older brother, some watery lily of the valley perfume for my lovely soft mum, and a bottle of something Old Spice-y for my beautiful big dad. That was it, save maybe a spiky spat about washing up versus drying. Otherwise my entire day was spent on a sofa opening a thrilling present, of which there were about five max, or on the floor over-cuddling a dog with tinsel around its neck, and eating walnut whips willy-nilly. I was warm and safe and full and loved, and all was well. Not a care. I completely belonged, in the bosomy heart of my family. It’s no wonder is it, that the age-old Christmas story has at its core a mother and child? They belong together, to each other. December afternoons leave me longing for that, and I begin to get childishly grumpy the closer the big day approaches, as if that’s going to surely be the pinnacle of the misery.

  BUT. Luckily.

  Each year, for the last five years, something a bit marvellous happens just in time, and it is my own little Christmas miracle.

  Somewhere around the third week of December, I get a little fizz inside me. Tiny at first, and intermittent. It happens when I least expect it, in a frosty lane or on the sighting of an old paper chain around a central light in an elderly person’s house, or finding a red berry in my hood. It’s a hopeful Lazarus that rises up each year just when I was convinced it was dead, and y’know what it is?

  It’s wonder.

  Proper wonder.

  At how lovely it is.

  Proper lovely.

  The kind of wonder that reminds you that Christmas is definitely coming. It’s big and cheerful and it’s going to love you into submission so you might as well surrender. It’s bigger than you, and by dint of its very size and power you are going to be held inside it, the way you were as a kid.

  Thanks to wonder, I AM going to find some joy in it, in little surprising places. It won’t be in any forced jollity, it will be instead in my mother-in-law’s embrace as she arrives for lunch. It will be in my brother’s knowing look across the table as he fleetingly acknowledges who we are missing. It will be in that last moment before I go to bed on Christmas Eve, making sure everyone is safely gathered in and all is set for the morning. I will have one last revel in the blinky lights of the truly wonderful huge tree before turning them off, knowing that the next time they go on, after one sleep, it will be CHRISTMAS.

  Look how I am loving having my chicks here with me, in the nest. Look how blessed I am to have a Christmas with them all. Look who taught me how to love like this. My mum. Who I am just like. Who lives on in me. Who is here in the best possible way. At Christmas and always.

  OK, grief, I get it. You are simply the portal. I have to pass through you, through ‘Sadmas’, to get to the wonder bit. And yes, here it comes …

  HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

  This makes my kids’ friends love me. Stephen Fry once called me a ‘total bitch’ (in a good way) for making it.

  It’s this: MARS BAR FONDUE

  • Chop up and melt four Mars Bars in a bain marie (posh word for bowl over boiling water).

  • Chop up fruit (strawberries, grapes, banana). Plus some marshmallows if you have them.

  • Put fruit and marshmallows on plate. Pour hot melted Mars Bars into small dish in middle.

  • Give people a fondue fork for dipping.

  • Lean back and bask in adoration.

  • That’s it.

  PS Maybe add rum or cognac if it’s adults only? Or thin the mixture with milk/cream if necessary.

  Your failsafe signature dish:

  Take a fourth and final photo of yourself. You might like to take this moment to reflect on your selfies. Has anything changed?

  .

  ‘The mellow
year is hasting to its close’

  Hartley Coleridge (son of Sam!)

  Hasting is right. Where has the time gone? To the same place best pants go when they disappear from the washing machine, or where every one of the sixteen A–Zs I’ve owned have gone? Or where my upper body strength is …? Time must be holding a busy party somewhere with everything else we’ve lost track of. Bet it’s untidy.

  It’s Winter already. I know because not a day passes without socks, and I don’t even like socks that much. You need socks when it’s blowing a warlike hoolie and yowling icy winds attempt to nip your ankles. You need sturdy waterproof boots so that you can stamp your mark into the ice in shallow puddles. You need a decent coat … because your mum told you so. Sometimes in hot shops you hate your mum for telling you so.

  It ain’t all bleak: there are cheeky red robins, and acid-yellow gorse, the Christmas lights are beginning to twinkle, and there’s a roaring fire in the hearth. If you have a hearth. And if you’re in Little Dorrit.

  Winter can be skeletal and brutal in Nature, as trees do their burlesque best to shed their foliage. It can drive us indoors to hibernate in a torpor of telly, hot chocolate, cold chocolate and chocolate, with occasional chocolate as a treat. We look for our comforts in the cosy warm. We turn our evening lights on in the afternoon and we brrr out of our windows as children crunch home from school in the sleety dark. All the colourful flighty things of summer are gone. No flowers, no butterflies, no girls in bright strappy dresses.