On putting my life and kids on the page
Some potentially controversial thoughts on being the child of a mum who writes all about her life
My new book, The Giant on the Skyline: On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go, will be published on the 8th May and I would love you to read it. Home drenches every page. Home is a concept which has obsessed me since I was a child, and examining what it feels like to want it, make it, miss it and leave it inspired so much of what I wrote.
Yesterday I took the kids to the Capitol, where we were having a photograph taken together as part of the publicity for The Giant on the Skyline, which is coming out on 8th May. All three children were absolutely furious with me when I picked them up from school as they’d wanted to stay in the playground and either, depending on each child’s preferences, trade Pokemon cards, play basketball, or talk about Sephora (I don’t know if you have a pre-teen girl in your life, but the marketing that that company is doing at pre-teen girls is ferocious and highly effective). So there was a bit of sulking but by the time we got to the Capitol, the sun was shining and late afternoon in DC was so outstandingly beautiful, so their complaints all quietly silenced.
The photographer we worked with was extremely long suffering and made the process relatively quick and easy, although Dash shouted about how much he loves England a bit. He does this whether there’s a photographer there or not, so it was nothing new. Dash’s reaction to moving to America has been to become fiercely loyal to England, and at least he made the photographer laugh. He also knows that having a picture taken for my work is what I do to make a living, and he knows that sometimes, he too might be included in that process. All of my children, including my two elder kids who are at university in England, have had their picture taken many times, either to illustrate an article I’ve written, or to coincide with the publication of one of my books. They’ve grown up with it, and I’m not coy about putting them on my social media either. Their snaps are all over my Instagram, a glorious virtual photograph book I take huge pleasure in looking back over. I love scrolling through images and video I’ve saved there of them when they were smaller, and so do they.
After we’d finished working with the photographer, we walked along Pennsylvania Avenue to meet Pete at his office near the White House. This is the reason I uprooted a life I loved, where I felt safe and secure and that I belonged, and moved to Washington DC, where I felt none of those things: so that Pete and I could be together after years of living a long distance marriage. I miss the deep spiritual connection I feel to the landscape of southern England, but afternoons like yesterday, when we do something normal, like meet after work with the kids and spend spontaneous time together, surprise me and delight me, because suddenly I feel the rightness in our move. Moving to America has been harder and odder than I thought it would be. An afternoon like that, surrounded by this capital city, are about as different from our Friday nights in England as it’s possible to be. Then, I’d probably have taken the kids to the Ridgeway for a picnic, or I might be out in our field, playing with one of my horses. But I’m learning to allow myself to enjoy the new life, and althougn that green field I left behind beats like another heart inside me, I also like being able to wear trainers that don’t get dirty. Small wins. And I love being beside Pete: that’s the really big win.
Anyway, the process of being photographed in DC made me think of the many, many times I’ve been photographed, both with and without the kids, as part of my work as a journalist. Yesterday I posted a few snaps on my Instagram stories about the day, and someone messaged me asking me how I felt about including my children in what I write, and whether I was comfortable making so much of my life public. It’s a good question and is something I’ve thought incredibly hard about, for many years. And I get asked about it a lot, so let’s go.
First of all, I want to make it clear that there are parts of my life that I don’t write about. A lot of my writing including my journalism and this Substack, as well as all my four books, are highly confessional, and so it’s inevitable that there might be an assumption that absolutely everything is on the table. It’s not. There are relationships and events and things and people and feelings I don’t want to write about, and don’t need to write about, and I cannot see that changing. I do not write about everything, and neither do I write on stuff for the sake of it. I write about things that have changed me, or helped me understand more about life.
Memoir is a slice of life; it’s not the entire life. It’s profoundly different from autobiography, and in some ways is a hugely artificial process, since it puts a book, with a beginning, middle and end, around a period of life. As we all know, REAL, day to day life doesn’t feel like this; it’s messy and confusing and has no clear trajectory until after the event. There are no happy endings in life, as there are in books, just an ongoing confusion with occassional sparks of light.
And what I am attempting to do in each memoir I write is to take one aspect of my life - motherhood, for example, or grief, or home - and then delve deep into that aspect of it, to understand and then communicate in written words, what that really feels like, and how it changes over a period of time. And I know, from the many many incredible messages I receive from so many of you, and the rich and rewarding conversations I have with people at events or just coincidentally in life, that when I write about the things I’m finding hard, interesting, traumatic, beautiful, demanding, rewarding, fucked up or great, other people will see a part of their own life reflected there too. Seeing their own life in mine helps people feel less weird or alone or confused. And that’s a massive source of joy and a huge part of the reason I write.
I can use the pain of my life, and the loss, as well as joy, I’ve experienced, to help other people see their lives more clearly. For me it’s a great privilege to be able to do that. And when I am asked if I am comfortable making so much of my life public, there’s only one answer.
Yes. There’s no way I would - or indeed could - write like this if I was uncomfortable with it. Of course, this doesn’t mean the writing is easy or straightforward or without pain, during the creative process. Far from it! It’s agony, a lot of the time. Examining parts of your own life is incredibly painful, but I am not scared of this pain, and neither am I ashamed by what I’ve been through. I believe that when I reveal the most vulnerable parts of myself to you on the page, I’m actually at my most human, and therefore in some ways, most beautiful. Beauty is not in perfection or brilliance, but in humanity. When I connect with another person, which I do, often, it’s very rarely over one another’s achievements, but instead over one another’s suffering. In fact, it’s never over what we’ve achieved. It’s always over loss that I feel closest to another human.
And now there is the question of my children. What do they feel about seeing my life, and to a certain extent, parts of their lives, reflected on the page, and in the photography shoots, like yesterday’s, which are an absolutely inevitable part of life as a writer? My take on this might be controversial, but here goes.