letter #51: After Several Drafts and False Starts

With a scattering of photographs from the last month or so.

My dear friend

I hope this email finds you. By which I mean that I hope this email somehow finds it way through all of the chatter and the noise on these big, loud interwebs and that it lands gently and quietly in your inbox. I also hope this email finds you because that means I’ve actually finished it. There are eight (EIGHT) drafts hidden behind the curtains of the Naive Psychologist substack. In the six years I’ve been writing this, I’ve only sent 50 letters. Eight is 16 percent of 50. By which I mean the weight of drafts to letters seems utterly out of proportion.

I thought the cosmos I planted were white, but turns out they were pink. A surprise, but a gorgeous surprise.

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Hilariously*, one of those drafts is dated exactly one year ago. Which is a little odd because I actually sent a letter to you the day before. But at the same time it does make sense, because whenever I send you a letter I think, ‘That was fun, I should send letters more often.’

I suppose the fact that I intended to send you a letter on this very day one year ago also goes to show how ingrained my behaviours are. It’s the beginning of February, time to make good on all those January promises and commitments I’ve made to myself. Also, it’s my birthday in February, and back when I were a child, school started in February not January. So February has always felt more like the beginning of the year, with January a sweet little interlude between the end of one year and the beginning of another. It’s the vibe.

The draft from February last year has an opening paragraph, a bunch of ellipses, one middle sentence, a bunch more ellipses and an ending paragraph.

Driving home. It’s dry and dusty. Droughty.

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Even more hilariously than that I would be writing on this exact date two years in a row, that letter opens with the line, “I didn’t enrol in the sculpting letters course.” I assume I was going to tell you that 2024 was the year I planned to focus. That in 2024 I would not get distracted by shiny new courses. But hahahaha the jokes on me, because this year I was unable to resist the siren call of the sculpting letters course and I have indeed enrolled. It’s not called sculpting letters, it’s called ‘stone letter carving.’ Carving and sculpting being kind of related, but also kind of the opposite, so I imagine I’m going to be a star at this craft. Hahahahaha. It starts in March.

I found the cats and dogs exhibition at the NGV gallery very, um, odd. But I liked this cat dress. This trapeze/A-line silhouette is one of my favourites as even a cursory glance at my wardrobe will attest.

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The middle sentence of the draft I started this time last year reads, “I have learnt even more about audiences. I used to examine my ticket sales with a forensic interest.” I imagine that here I was going to tell you I was not frantically checking and re-checking the ticket sales of my latest Adelaide Fringe season. That would have been a lie. This time of year I am coaxing and coaching myself to not check my ticket sales, but it’s very hard not to obsess over them. (If you want to be the person to cause me to think with delight, ‘Oh, look, someone has bought tickets,’ the next time I check my sales report, you can buy tickets here. Gee, that was subtle, wasn’t it?)

I’m mostly a vegetarian, but every now and then I’ll have something like IKEA meatballs washed down with lingonberry juice.

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The ending paragraph of the draft I started last year is this:

“All the newsletters end with Reading Listening Watching Cooking.

Listening: to the sound of my own voice as I rehearse over and over.”

I imagine I thought myself hilarious in writing that. I mean hahahahaha ‘listening’ is where the cool people put all the cool music and cool podcasts people are listening to, but I’m ‘listening’ to myself. I’m so uncool, but really I’m cool. hahahaha. Thank goodness I didn’t send that piece of embarrassment to you!

That being said, it’s probably one of the most true things I’ve written. Because at this time of year, when I’m deep in rehearsals for my new show which I always debut at the Adelaide Fringe, I am mostly only listening to myself as I refine, memorise, refine, memorise a script. It’s more true this year than it was last year, because I’m currently rehearsing to keep all six (SIX) shows in my head. (Second gratuitous link to tickets for my shows at the Adelaide Fringe).

This time last year, I decided I was going to take a break from writing new shows, bring the series to a close. Sometime later in the year I decided that I would do one season of all six shows that I’ve written and performed since 2018. I like to think of it as a ‘retrospective.’ But feel free to think of it in the less wankery words of my cousin who said, ‘So you’re rehashing you’re old sh*t?’ 🤣

Sure there’s Chihuly in the Botanic Gardens, but the works in the Gathering Light exhibition in the Jam Factory Gallery are extraordinary, exhibit A, these exquisite works by Jessica Murtagh.

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So it seems that this day this year is pretty much exactly the same as this day last year was. Except that it isn’t, is it? Because my goodness what a sh*t show. (The asterisk isn’t because I’m being coy, it’s to try and help make sure that this email finds you and doesn’t get caught in your spaminator). It’s hard to know what to do in the face of it all. I feel that I have such little power, and such little control that it is tempting to do as we are all tempted to do and to look away. That’s not a long term solution, though, is it? Apart from anything else, I simply am not built to look away.

What is a person like me supposed to do? I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is that I’m supposed to be doing. Like not only in the context of the US and of people in Gaza trying to survive and of climate change and of just everything. But just generally in the context of being alive. I started writing out all of the reasons that I’ve been thinking about what I’m supposed to be doing. But it was so boring, I almost put myself to sleep so I can’t imagine what it would have done to you. I’ve deleted it, never to be found in drafts again.

Adrian chose beer and I chose Campari.

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Long story short: instead of trying to shout above the voices I will never be louder than; and instead of trying to make myself be seen over the tops of people I will never be taller than, I have decided to go quiet and to go small. For example, after this year’s fringe, I’ll be taking my quiet, little shows and touring them to small towns. No town too small!

In a way, this has been something it’s taken me a long time to feel comfortable with. Debuting shows at the Adelaide Fringe does make a person feel that she needs to try and be heard above the laughter of the television comedians; to be seen even over the heights of the acrobats in circus tents; to dress in a red that’s more red than cabaret. However, taking this time to stop writing new work and to lose myself in my old work, the parts that I love the most are the parts that go small and celebrate quiet.

Me at the Big Bash. hahahaha see what I did there?

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So that’s me. I think it’s widely accepted that February is too late to be wishing people a happy new year, but I do hope that amongst it all you are able to find some peace and to make some peace, in this sh*tstorm that’s raging around us.

As is my way, I’ll either be back next week or sometime in the next six months, or maybe even further away than that (the last letter I sent was in June so I’m definitely making good on my promise to be sporadic). Until then, I will think of you often and with love,

Your friend,

Tracy

* I know, it’s not all that hilarious. I wrote ‘hilariously’ to stop myself from mis-using ‘ironically.’ Looking at it now I’m not sure which is the bigger crime, ‘hilariously’ or ‘ironically’ but here we are.

Oh, and one final link to my season at the Adelaide Fringe. In case you want to come along.