by Bee Rowlatt
Soon Will and I will be all the way back into the torrent of the real world: shouting kids, falling out with friends, shoes everywhere, school rush, laundry, deadlines, childcare, work, getting everyone fed and then doing it all over again. This is our last precious bubble of exclusive time. Somehow it’s heightened by Will’s complete oblivion, as I gaze on his sleeping face.
But even screechy mornings trying to get everyone into their shoes and out the front door – even these are “moments”. And this is why the squeaking violin causes such a stab in my heart. At home it’d be a background irritation. Here it is singled out, amplified with all the grandeur of a church organ and given meaning. That small sound is part of my life and all the meaning of my life.
My child was sleeping with equal calmness – innocent and sweet as the closing flowers. Some recollections … made a tear drop on the rosy cheek I had just kissed, and emotions that trembled on the brink of ecstasy and agony gave a poignancy to my sensations which made me feel more alive than usual.
Wollstonecraft stares at her baby and goes on to talk about being not an island, but part of the grand mass of humanity – just as I am feeling the magnetic pull of home. Those ancient domestic resentments have been ironed out by some newer freedoms. They are freedoms that were hard-won, and not by me. They are freedoms I didn’t appreciate before, and they are tempered by knowing not everyone can do this. What about the Lago showgirls and the Holbeck estate mums. What about them?
Well, even if it’s been a selfish journey, the witches taught me not to let that bring me down. We’re picking up what’s right in front of us. Above all, I’m dying to see Justin and the girls again. What led me away from home has now brought me closer. There’s no place like it. And I’ve officially given up caring if I sound like I’m on the mommy drugs.
It lashes down with dark grey rain on our last day. It pours down the back of my neck as I load Will into his car seat this one last time, on our way back to San Francisco International Airport. Even Ms Satnav seems a bit sullen. We have to do a huge loop around Presidio because she kept silent. Funny how things get faster at the end, like the last few grains of sand speeding through the hourglass. I’ve packed in a blur. If I get searched I definitely hope they find my Annie Sprinkle DVD: How To Be a Sex Goddess: Action Tips from Post-Modern Porn.
But the writing – the impulse to record it all, the clapping of the net over the butterfly of the moment – was it useful? I have spent a thousand hunched hours on it. Hours spent away from my kids, but writing about them. Often without knowing why. I was on it, so I kept going. The usefulness or otherwise of this is debatable. What is beyond debate is the power of the book that made me do it. Letters from Norway, and the multi-directional adventures bursting from its yellowing pages. Her centuries-old words reinforced the need to go out and live things a bit deeper, right now. And then, that haunting call, to
form your grand principles of action, to save you from the vain regret of having, through irresolution, let the spring tide of existence pass away, unimproved, unenjoyed. Gain experience – ah, gain it! – while experience is worth having, and acquire sufficient fortitude to pursue your own happiness; it includes your utility, by a direct path…
Will and I set off with one set of Grand Principles of Action:
1)
to make more people love Wollstonecraft
2)
to follow her legacy forwards
3)
to think about motherhood instead of just doing it
and managed to clock up some new ones quite by accident:
4)
to quell the hippy rage
5)
to want more than anything to come home
It didn’t always seem like a direct path. But it did lead us directly out the front door, out of the daily scramble of hurrying and stuff and squabbling and laundry and whatever else it is that makes it suddenly be much later than you thought. Because life spreads out like a spilt glass of water, running its way, in a small and brief trickle. For a short time, we took the water off its course and managed to freeze it, lift it up and look through it. And that was enough. Let that spilt water go, evaporate, form a cloud elsewhere; I can call it a day.
Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable – and life is more than a dream?
Wollstonecraft stood alone and stands alone. I never wanted to be an expert, just a companion. And for her thoughts; her courage and indignation, to accompany others too. “I do not wish [women] to have power over men, but over themselves.” What could be more powerful than completing a quest? Even if it was a quest that I couldn’t properly see until we’d done it.
The very end of the trip too suddenly arrives, and we’re on the flight home. Will only thrashes for almost an hour, and then he falls into the deepest, dearest sleep. I flop my head back on the seat. I’m tired, but it’s not the grinding exhaustion of everyday motherhood: it’s a profoundly satisfying tiredness. My mind has run up and down several mountains of thought, while my body carried this baby along for the ride. There’s an elated sadness that doesn’t stem entirely from this double gin-and-tonic. Cheers, Wolly. We did it. I sigh theatrically, disturbing the hair of the man sitting in front of us. I don’t care. We’ve done the three journeys and now I can come home.
When I pulled Will out of his warm cot, all those long months ago, and set off on that bright early morning to Norway, I had no idea what we’d find. Or that what we would find might lead us onwards to further and bigger adventures. Together we flew against the scarcely perceptible current of daily life, the current that floats us along, ushering us beyond the moment and into old age without noticing; letting
the spring tide of existence pass away, unimproved, unenjoyed.
I expected to chase some freedoms and have some fun. I wasn’t looking for searing insights into my own existence. And don’t worry: I haven’t found any, and am resolutely continuing not to look. So that’s OK and you can cut the end theme music swell right there. But I’d be lying if I pretended that I’ve managed not to learn anything. On top of the stuff I actually wanted to learn, that is, about Wollstonecraft and women’s lives. It turns out that it’s not selfish to
acquire sufficient fortitude to pursue your own happiness.
There were surprises, too. So many other worlds are all happening at the same time – you can take your pick – but there’s one thing they have in common. It’s that people are basically better than you may expect. They are kinder, more willing to share and much funnier than I ever hoped. This is worth putting to the test some time. Even with a baby. Especially with a baby…
Gain experience – ah, gain it!
The answers are all flying around my head, clashing and spinning like glitter in a snow globe. What matters? What is it that matters? I look down at Will: he’s dreaming in his traditional spot in the next seat. Legs resting on my legs, arms flung up over his head, eyelids soft. I pick up his left foot and hold it for almost the whole flight. It fits into my hand. This won’t last. There’s everything I’ve learnt and then there’s this, right now, the best thing ever.
Acknowledgements
From the outset this book relied on the goodwill and generosity of others. I have an immense debt of gratitude to every person who appears in its pages, including those whose names have been changed to protect identities. If you’re in here: I love, thank and owe you a big one, for ever.
Some of the travel was funded by the Society of Authors’ K. Blundell Trust Award. The Society’s work promoting the interests and the very existence of writers is increasingly important, and much appreciated (www.societyofauthors.org).
Special behind-the-scenes thanks to Mark Skipworth, and to my wonderful agent Adrian Sington.
Thanks to my SOWsters, Rachel, Tahmima and Kamila – truly: without whom, and all that.
Huge thanks to the formidable combo of Alessandro Gallenzi and Elisabetta Minervini, and to everyone at Alma Books. What a joy to be publishe
d by you.
Thank you Mary Wollstonecraft. Thank you Yorkshire Tea. Does anyone read this part? I’ll just carry on… Thank you for buying this book. Please keep on buying books. Books are magic. Thank you, Books. Tha— what? OK, I’ll stop.
Photo: Laurie Sparham
Bee Rowlatt is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and has reported for the World Service, Newsnight and BBC2. The co-author of the best-selling Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad (Penguin, 2010) as well as one of the writers featured in Virago’s 2013 anthology Fifty Shades of Feminism, Bee received the K. Blundell Trust Award for In Search of Mary. She has four children and lives in London.
