Conversations with Mary

Outside my family’s house, at the centre of a little square, a shrine is placed, where Mary shows the inside of her forearms. She has been doing that – and that only – for decades now. Standing like she’s offering her veins to a blood test, or preparing for the Mountain pose (aka Tadasana.) She always wears the same Monna Lisa-like expression. 

In the old days, the ladies from the neighbourhood would gather around the shrine with the rosaries in their hands, in the evenings in May. They pulled each bead of their Catholic jewels like the strings that held together their lives. Mary watched those murmuring sitting ladies with dry resignation. Sometimes she would whisper: 

   “Go home ladies, don’t waste your time. Cheat on your husbands. Have a glass of wine. You have feet, use them. You weren’t made to be shrines; why the hell would you want to behave as such?” 

Pearls for the crazy

5 simple truths about psychotherapy – learnt the hard expensive way

Credit @Alamy, published on BBC.co.uk

I fired Dr. White almost a month ago. The specialist I’ve been referring to as my new therapist for the last eight months, has already become my ex. (“Fired” may not be appropriate in this context, but I enjoy using the word.) We’d been on a rough patch for sometime, although if I hadn’t had a certain conversation with Silvana – my friend who co-authors this blog – I’d probably have dragged our therapeutic relationship for a little longer. Some friends open your eyes, or rather, your mouth: they dare to say things that you didn’t want to say. Dr. White was definitely not the one – who would turn my unconscious inside out – she’d proven that to me already on several occasions. It was time to stop procrastinating and move on.

I believe – more and more, as I grow older – that bad experiences and failed relationships teach us a great deal, and my ex-therapist has gained the podium in my life for both. 

A secret that is worth sharing

Not with everyone though

Dear friends and readers, I wanted to share something very personal with all of you today. Something that’s shaken the core of my existence, no kidding. At least, I wanted to share it when I woke up this morning. But right now, I feel it’s best to keep quiet, as I have good reasons to believe that someone is watching – and they’re neither a friend nor a reader.

Il Sostituto

La dottoressa è andata in vacanza, lasciando il nome e l’indirizzo del suo sostituto

Gettyimages

Il Sostituto ci indicò lo studio. ‘Prego. Accomodatevi. Vengo subito’, e continuò a scambiare dei messaggi importanti con l’infermiera, che si era alzata dalla scrivania e stava in piedi davanti alla barriera protettiva di plastica, dell’era Covid.

Ci sedemmo su due sedie di pelle dalle gambe abbondanti e ben tornite. Mentre aspettavo non potei non notare un grande crocifisso che pendeva dal muro. Dire grande non è un’esagerazione, enorme piuttosto, anzi gigantesco; mi sembrava che occupasse tutta la stanza e che le sue braccia di terracotta si allungassero sino a toccarne gli angoli. La schiena era ben incollata su una base di legno, forse un pezzo imponente di una grande quercia abbattuta a colpi d’ascia. Tutto il resto nella stanza scompariva dietro il crocifisso, nel senso che non riuscivo a notare nient’altro.

Il Sostituto arrivò dopo dieci minuti, ma mi erano sembrati 10,000 anni. Appena egli entrò, il crocifisso ritirò le braccia e si accomodò sulla barella di legno di quercia, sempre enorme ma non più gigantesco.

The trip of a lifetime

After a 6-hour delay, we arrive to our destination. The station is part of a shopping centre filled with delicious cakes and pastry. We are angry and tired, but anger seems to win and we end up cueing up to get our cakes, they look yummy, big and cheap. The girl at the counter doesn’t understand the word ‘cream’ and everything comes to a halt for a few seconds. How bizarre! considering that  ‘cream’ is at the foundation of all things sweet and scrumptious. I goggle it, for the sake of it, and it comes up in several European languages, pretty much the same in all of them, Krém, crema (in at least three languages), krema (also in several languages), kremo (in Esperanto), kreem, kerma, crème, creme, κρέμα, even in Greek and Russian it’s the same (if you can read the cyrillic alphabet).

Perfect editor, where art thou?

The struggle to find “the right one”

Photo by Braxton Apana on Unsplash

My 2023 horoscope is all about “collaboration”. And so, as literary rejections started hitting my inbox right at the beginning of the year, I finally thought of consulting an editor.

 I just picked one of the many who turned my stories down, but who was clever enough to mention their editing services within the rejection email. I paid £45 and re-submitted the same story they had refused to publish (about 2,200 words.) I was pretty happy with the full report I received. Along with the standard proofreading and grammar corrections, I liked the editor’s main comment: my characters are self-centred crooks who fail to redeem themselves. Possibly this wasn’t meant as a compliment, but I took it as such. It’s true, I feel drawn to foolish people living foolish patterns that complicate their lives. I am not interested in determining if these subjects make good sellers or not, but I felt thrilled that someone else had seen “them.” It was like receiving a response to my message in a bottle.

Realisation

I slammed the phone down and fumed over to the kitchen to throw lunch together. I had thirty minutes until the next conference call. ‘What a passive-aggressive management system’, I muttered petulantly serving up a trout with steaming potatoes and a green salad. I shovelled it hurriedly, running through the points I’d have to present on in ten minutes. I felt a sharp object – too late!

How much money does an author make?

The unknown, the poor, the rich and the richest

Logo credit @MokoFun

More and more writers are sharing publicly that they don’t earn enough money. Maybe not this bluntly, although they admit meagre profits from traditional publishing, and define ‘living off book sales’ as a dream that only comes true for an elite of people. The cry for help doesn’t come from ‘new’ writers, but from authors with an established reputation. “Horribly low pay is pushing out my fellow authors – and yes, that really does matter,” writes Joanne Harris in The Guardian. I have checked, and it looks like Harris has been on this planet with us for the last three or four decades. If she hadn’t been, at least there would be an explanation for the astonished tone in her article.

Creating a character: Study

The woman with the green dress

Source: WWF

She wore a dress, a green dress. Not the green of grass and leaves in summer, but something closer to an autumn colour and a warm peas soup. A feeling of warmth oozes from her body (the analogy with the peas soup doesn’t make her justice, but there is nothing wrong with soups. The narrator is trying to describe a new character and will use all kind of coherent and incoherent analogies and similarities). She walks gracefully with long decisive strides –delicate and quick– like a cat who has taken walking lessons from a squirrel.

Scrittrici (e scrittori) si nasce

Chi dice “ci si diventa” ti sta vendendo qualcosa

“Woman writing at a table” by Thomas Pollock Anshutz

Anni fa tentai di far pubblicare dei miei racconti dalla prestigiosa Writers Magazine Italia, la “Rivista di riferimento per chi scrive. E vuole pubblicare”, come precisa ancora oggi il sottotitolo. Inviai tre o quattro storie che finirono nell’oblio, dopodiché lasciai perdere.

Non so come sia la situazione oggi, ma ai tempi essere abbonati alla rivista (o acquistarla su basi più o meno regolari) era un requisito essenziale per farsi prendere in considerazione.  Giusto, infatti, proporre i propri lavori a una rivista che si conosce bene. C’era ( e c’è, credo) anche un forum online, dove gli utenti postavano tutti i giorni, con diligenza, racconti e feedback ad altri racconti. Tra di loro c’erano quelli che oggi chiamerei i cool kids: gli autori più o meno onnipresenti della WM Italia, i cui lavori venivano quasi sempre selezionati per la pubblicazione. Nel complesso, era una comunità di gente che ci credeva e si impegnava. Tutti più o meno debuttanti, su di loro gravava la presenza dell’editor, anzi editor maximo – dinanzi al quale sembrava appropriato genuflettersi almeno virtualmente.