Cecilia Poullain

Diary Of A Writer

In this episode, I talk about how many of the things that we might believe to be the opposites of creativity can be used in the creative process.

  • Each piece of writing needs a Central Dramatic Question which has a yes or no answer. For part of my book - and my life - the Central Dramatic Question is: "Will I find a career that is personally and financially rewarding?"

    There needs to be an overarching Central Dramatic Question for the book and a Central Dramatic Question for each scene. I started to write a series of scenes that went to the overall theme of the book and to think about each individual Central Dramatic Question.

    Because I was only structuring today and didn't produce any new work, I read a text about how I coach and why I love my coaching clients.

  • An episode about anxiety - the anxiety of getting back to writing after a three week break, and the anxiety I feel every time I wake up

  • Boy it was hard to write today. I looked at my list of subjects to write about, and ended up writing about two things: my annoying habit of speaking up at the very end of a meeting and why my friend stole my German textbook.

    I think it is getting hard because I need to write about things that I am not proud of. I could and probably should be writing about my catastrophic relationships with boys, but I skirted the issue...

    Will I have the courage to get into the nitty-gritty tomorrow?

  • Today was a difficult day to get things done. I had wanted to spend all afternoon writing, but it didn't work out like that.

    I ended up writing about a terrifying incident in Tibooburra, a tiny town in far-western New South Wales in Australia, and about how proud I am to belong to a swimming club.

  • I had lots of fears and doubts today about what I am writing. This is a very short episode because I spent time looking back through my notes to find ideas and things I wanted to write about.

    In the end, I decided to write something easy and agreeable - about why I love coaching so much.

  • As I was writing the story about how my boss talked about my files in our team meeting - and I let him - I remembered another story about how another boss presented my work, fifteen years later. I realized that between the two, I had gained the courage to say it wasn't OK for me.

    And a tiny little story about the freedom I felt to dance when I was a child.

  • I met an English writer last night. We were talking about how to "just write junk".

    Interestingly, this led me to write this morning about a time in my life when I was trying so hard to write well that I couldn't write at all.

    This then led me to remember lots of tiny details about events that happened in the house I grew up in, in Bettowynd Road in Sydney.

  • Writing was easy for me today - I knew exactly what I wanted to write about.

    I had an awful singing lesson yesterday, which led me to these reflections on creating one's life as a masterpiece with time for both the yin and the yang.

  • Sometimes, I come to my desk with an idea that is fully formed and it is just a matter of setting it down on paper.

    Sometimes, like today, I have no ideas. I made a long list of different things I might want to write about, then wrote about something completely different.

    I wrote about how breaking a large task, like cycling up a very long hill, into a series of tiny tasks can make the task so much easier.

    Also about how aware I become of time when I am doing something difficult and how that awareness disappears when the difficult thing is done.

  • In this episode, I talk about our relationship with death and how, at least in the West, we are so removed from it and so polite around it.

  • I've had an idea for an article buzzing around in my head all weekend, so I used my writing time this morning to write the article instead of writing my book (and doing all the other stuff I had planned to do...).

    It's about why it is so hard for people to be innovative in workplaces where fear and judgement are baked into the way our workplaces are, and what we need to do to make space for people to access their creative mind. A subject dear to my heart...

  • I am 55.

    Can I tell you about my garden? You have no idea how much I love my garden. I was there last week. I have spent such a long time planning it and it is almost finished, as much as a garden is ever finished. Despite my planning, what I love are the surprises. I didn’t expect the red sage in the terrace garden to look so good with the heuchera in the maple garden behind. I didn’t expect the gaura to look so good with both of them. Last week, a wallflower suddenly grew in the neighbour’s garden, behind the fence, and it was exactly the right shade of bordeaux red to go with all the rest.

    I have been thinking about planting some dogwoods in the middle of the bank for ages. I already have one, which I chose for the red trunk in winter - a rare splash of colour. It took me ages to work out what to plant underneath the dogwoods. I looked on the internet and saw that the creeping myrtle would be a good companion plant. I love creeping myrtle, with its dark purple flower. In the garden shop, I suddenly saw the cyclamen in flower and they were exactly the right shade of deep magenta. All of that goes together, and goes with the heuchera and the sage and the gaura and the wallflower. It feels as though the whole thing is coming together.

    I finally pulled all the weeds out of the driveway garden and planted alternate fushia-pink sage and clear pink gaura. Towards the gate, I replanted some of the irises that I had pulled out, although I’m not convinced about how good they will look. The sage and the gaura look good together, but - another surprise - the sage looks extraordinary with the abelia in the flower in the hedge behind. This gives me a sense of deep satisfaction and I can’t stop thinking about it.

    I made a mistake with the same fushia-pink sage - I planted one next to the cotoneaster in the garden next to the field, and the pink and orangey-red clashed terribly.

    What do I love about my garden? I love putting my fingers into the deep, dark soil and seeing how alive it is. There is nothing dead about the soil in my garden. I love knowing that I have helped to make the soil as rich as it is. Every time I put a spade into the soil, earthworms and other creatures come to the surface. I love bringing life to the garden, bringing the garden to life. I love the idea of the plant roots under the surface, finding their place, reaching out for what they need, connecting with other plants.

    I love finding colours that go together and being surprised. I love the process of creation and the process of co-creation with the plants in the garden. I love not controlling it all. I do my part; the plants do theirs. I love the surprises each time I come back - what has flourished, what has been lost or what is being smothered by other, stronger plants. I love seeing plants teeter on the brink and come back to life, because they have been moved or because the seasons have changed. I love throwing weeds and grass clippings and vegetable peel into the compost heap and coming back to find deep, rich compost. I love the cyclicity of it - nothing is wasted, everything has its place. I love the physical work, the effort. The result is all the more satisfying because of the effort. I love learning about plants and remembering their names and what they need.

    I have been so lucky to turn a bare patch of earth covered in tarpaulins held in place by a scattering of gravel into a garden.

    My garden is almost finished now, as much as any garden is ever finished. Established is probably the better word. When we go back in February, I will need to do a lot of pruning in preparation for the growing season. I need to replace the lobelia with something more permanent but still the same deep purply-blue that looks so good with the solanum and the nemesia.

    My garden. My beautiful garden.

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  • I am 45, perhaps.

    It is very early evening. Or very late afternoon. Or somewhere between the two. There is still some light in the sky and the few clouds are high and distant, thin, rare, almost non-existent. In the East, the sky is dark already but the West is soft pinks and blues. The sun has already slipped below the horizon, as it is wont to do.

    The air is clear and pure. I don’t realise how thick the air is that I usually breathe until I come up here and breathe the clean, pure air in deep lungfuls.

    I am not far from the house. Mum is making dinner and someone is probably carefully putting newspaper then twigs then sticks then logs onto the fire. The evenings are cool. When I left, people were lounging around reading the newspaper and books. The radio is on.

    I needed some fresh air. I walk up the road from the house, up the slight rise past the odd piece of land that might be an empty lot or might be a park, filled with century-old pine trees, then drop down and cross Hat Hill Road, heading towards the park at the bottom of the hill where the outdoor swimming pool is.

    A magpie sings in the gum trees as a pass. That sound that I miss so much. A sound like a brook, a warble that starts high, drops down into the depths then climbs up again. Perfect every time. No music could rival such a sound.

    This beautiful place that was my place but is no longer - but perhaps will be again one day?

  • I am 52.

    I have such a clear vision. I am in the Palais de Tokyo, high on the hill on the other side of the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. It is early evening. I am in the foyer of white marble. The lights are low and strobe lights are roving. The audience is sitting on the stairs and I am at the bottom. I am wearing a sequined dress in greens and blues which reflects the strobe lights. The dress has long sleeves and is tight and spreads out around me on the floor, like a mermaid.

    I am telling my stories. The title is “Green and Blue” because my stories are the story of the world. Where it has come from and where it is going.

    That is my vision.

    This is the reality. I write the first story, which ends up being the last. I write about the Mona Lisa, protected behind her thick pane of glass. I write about how she will feel when there are no people left to admire her. I write about the music in the National Library that no-one will play anymore, about the instruments left on stages, the books unread. I delete all that in the end, because I already made my point with the Mona Lisa. She is desperate - all the masterpieces around her are falling into ruin, and she will be the only one left, the only one to witness the destruction, protected behind her thick pane of glass.

    I write that story, then I write a story that will be the beginning. A father and his daughter, looking at the earth from somewhere far off in space. He explains to her why the earth is green and blue.

    I have my ending and my beginning, then I fill in the gaps. The first bacteria that divides into two - the two new bacteria immediately start to squabble. An australopithecus on the savannah, complaining because he has to eat roots all day. A sculpteur in his workshop, sculpting a work for the cathedral.

    There are texts I write and discard. The creation of the wheel never got off the ground, for example.

    I change the title from “Green and Blue” to “The Smallest of Moments” - nine tiny moments in the history of the world.

    My singing teacher suggests I learn the texts by heart. This seems impossible - how am I going to learn a full hour of text off by heart? She reassures me - she says I can always have the texts with me if I forget my lines, knowing full well that I won’t. I carry the folded pieces of A4 paper with me wherever I go until they become creased and grey, and in the metro or walking the streets of Paris, I recite.

    I then book a theatre - not the Palais de Tokyo, but La Théâtre de la Comédie Italienne in rue de la Gaïté, a street full of theatres and sex shops near Montparnasse Station. The theatre is old and dusty and dark. The walls are not white marble - they are painted in gloss paint with bigger-than-life-sized figures from the Commedia dell'Arte. White masks with long noses and cloaks and wide hats with long feathers and Harlequin’s suit of diamond shapes of coloured material.

    My teacher works with me on the staging and the movements. I have learnt my texts so well it doesn’t phase me when she gets me to roll on the floor.

    I decide what to wear - tight black trousers and a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt. I buy a longer buttoned shirt to go over the top because I am self-conscious about the size of my bottom and hips.

    I go to a material shop in Montmartre and buy a length of shiny, sparkly green and blue material which I will press-stud onto the T-shirt. It will represent the pond out of which will crawl the very first fish on land.

    I find a pianist who can compose the music. The theatre recommends a man who can do the lights. I work out how to sell tickets on the internet. I ask everyone I know if they will come.

    And I continue to walk the streets of Paris, rehearsing my lines.

    On 19 February 2019, a little before 8 p.m., I sit backstage with the pianist as people file into the theatre. The theatre is full - they even need to find three or four stools for the people who don’t have a seat.

    I am nervous, but I am also calm. I know I can do this. I want so much to do this. I want to share with all those people in the audience who I really am.

    It’s not the Palais de Tokyo. There are no strobe lights and there is no green and blue sequined dress. The title has changed. But it is my show, my one-woman show. My vision has become reality.

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  • I am 17.

    I have only seen my mother cry twice. She cried once because we were playing softball on the oval out the back of our place and she was accidentally hit in the face by the softball. She put her hand up on her cheek and cried. It must have hurt like crazy.

    The second time, she was on the landing between my parents’ bedroom and the top bathroom. We were all there, all five of us. My father put his arm around her shoulders and held her tight.

    I had been the one to pick up the phone on the shelf behind my father’s side of the bed. It had been my grandfather, and he asked to speak to one of my parents. I think my father took the call.

    My cousin Daniel had been out walking with a friend on his parents’ property in Mittagong. The property was owned by a number of families and their houses were all grouped together on a rise in the valley. The valley was surrounded by steep cliffs.

    He and his friend were walking along the top of the cliffs. They had crossed a river, well back from the edge, but the river bed was covered in moss and extremely slippery. Daniel’s feet went out from under him and he couldn’t grasp anything. He slid for thirty metres to the edge then went over the waterfall and fell for another thirty metres. I imagine his scream resonating against the cliffs as he went over.

    One of the policemen said: “Make sure the mother doesn’t see the body.”

    Daniel was an extraordinary artist. From the time he could hold a pencil, he was drawing. When he was younger, he drew mostly cartoons, and he and my brother would lie on the carpet, each with their drawing books in front of them. When he was older, he made a horse’s head out of latex. After he died, we found out that he had come top of the State in art for his painting. The painting was of his art class - except that it was the Last Supper, and in the middle, where the Christ should have been, was a radio.

    Because that’s how old he was when he died. Seventeen. Like me.

    On the day of his funeral, I had a piano exam for my Higher School Certificate. The exam was in a room with daylight filtering through dusty windows, off Cleveland Street near Central Station. I played badly, as I always did in concerts and exams.

    Surely it could have been arranged that I go to my own cousin’s funeral?

    Daniel was sensitive and gentle and kind and hugely talented. He should not have died.

    His art teacher says: “He was an old soul”.

    After the funeral, I lie on my bed looking at my built-in cupboards and thinking about all the clothes inside and realising that Daniel would never need clothes any more.

  • I am 55.

    My sister is back on her medication. The past two or three years have been so terribly difficult for her. She was trying to manage her medication by herself and that went all horribly wrong and she ended up back in a hospital.

    But now, she is back on her medication and is going well. My brother says to me: “I feel as though I have my sister back.” I feel the same.

    The three of us have known each other all our lives and have so many memories together and in that, there is so much strength. As our parents age, we are the ones picking up the responsibilities. And soon there will only be the three of us.

    My sister and I drive my husband and son to the airport to catch the plane back to France. We say goodbye and leave them there, but as we are driving away, my husband rings me to say that he has my passport. I say: “OK, sure, we’ll come back to the airport to pick it up.” He says “No, you don’t understand. I have your passport, but I don’t have my passport. You need to go back to Glebe to pick it up.”

    My sister and I have exactly one hour to get back to our parents’ flat, pick up his passport and get back to the airport before the check-in closes at 1.30 p.m.

    We take a wrong turn out of the airport and hit heavy traffic on South Dowling Street, on the east side of Sydney. My parents’ flat is on the west side of Sydney. We end up in a lane that goes down into a tunnel and have a moment of extreme panic when we think we might be going under the harbour. If that happened, there is no way we would be back at the airport in time. We don’t end up going under the harbour, but we also miss the cross-city tunnel and end up having to drive through the centre of Sydney. Every traffic light turns orange then red then green then orange again then red again then green before we can finally manage to get through. It is 12.45 p.m. I grip the armrest on the car door.

    We finally get through the City, take the Western Distributor over Darling Harbour, turn left at the Fish Markets, head up to Glebe Point Road and arrive at my parents’ flat at 12.55 p.m.

    While my sister turns the car around, I rush into my parents’ flat, swap the passports over and rush out again.

    We get to the airport at 1.35 p.m. My husband and son are waiting on the pavement at the drop-off point. I hand over my husband’s passport and grab mine. I take the time to give each of them a kiss, then they are off.

    The Lufthansa people are waiting for them, so they manage to get onto the plane.

    As my sister and I drive away from the airport a second time, all the stress falls off. I say: “You were a great person to be with today. You were so calm.” She responds, with a wry smile: “That’s because I’m on drugs”. We laugh.

  • I am 48.

    I am walking by myself along the path that follows the Western bank of the Rance River in Brittany. At its mouth, the river is more like a smooth generous in-curve of the coast, still part of the sea. After the bridge over the tidal power plant between Saint-Malo and Dinard, it is calmer and gradually narrows until the lock at La Hisse, where it turns into a canal. When the tide is out, the water pulls back from the lock leaving shiny brown banks of mud exposed. As the tide comes in, the water rushes to cover the banks of mud and laps up against the lock.

    I have parked next to an unholy mess of a boatyard, many of the boats rusting hulks that look as though they haven’t moved for decades.

    I have left the boatyard behind and taken the path south along the river. The path dips and curves, following the coast. Wooden steps have been built into the hillside in the places where it is particularly steep.

    I am walking along the western bank of the river between the power plant and the lock. The river is still wide here, and it is drizzling. The boats on the river are tied to their moorings - nobody is navigating. There is nobody on the path with me.

    I feel the strength in my legs, in my body. My walking boots on the naked beaten earth of the path. This is an old place. Each step connects me to this place a little more. The rain is beating down now, disturbing the calm of the wide expanse of water; it drips through the leaves of the beech trees overhanging the path onto the hood of my Goretex jacket.

    I don’t want anyone here with me. This is between me and this place. This special place; this sacred place. I hope and believe that this place holds me and welcomes me into it as I pass through it lightly, the only trace left is in my memory.

  • I am 55.

    People always say I am hard on myself. I don’t really know what they mean. They say I have very high standards. Again, I don’t really know what they mean. I just do stuff the way I always do.

    People also say that I am very judgemental. It is so hard for me to see how I am behaving, for any of us to see how we are behaving. People tell me I want to change others. Perhaps because I am always wanting to change myself.

    Where is the line between self-acceptance - accepting ourselves just as we are - and excellence, going beyond our comfort zone, striving for better? Where is the line between perfectionism and doing things so that they are just good enough? Where is the line between having confidence and wanting to change ourselves?

    Are they even the right questions to be asking? Or do we need confidence in ourselves in order to excel and push for better?

    The work for me is in accepting others just the way they are. Accepting their choices. Realising that they have different needs to me and different reasons for doing things. I feel as though I am biting my tongue so much of the time, but I am probably still saying too much, being too critical.

    Is this because I am critical of myself? Who knows? I don’t. I am just the way I am.

  • I am 31.

    We are all sitting around the table, M. Henrard at one end and M. Cauret at the other. Giulia is sitting opposite me and Philippe is also there, because he is so clever.

    They all have copies of my powerpoint in front of them. I have spent hours preparing it, and that second before I opened my mouth to speak, it all seemed so clear. I thought I had understood every point of this highly technical financial product, but the more I explained, the more my understanding of the arrows and boxes on the pages in front of me, indicating who was going to pay who in exchange for what, slipped from my grasp. Problems that now seemed blatantly obvious rose up in front of me as I spoke.

    I could feel the hot red move up my neck, into my cheeks, burning them, up to my forehead. My whole face a blaze of red.

    What was the point of those meetings? To inform the management of what was going on in their department? To think together? Or to judge.

    How was that meeting in any way designed to ensure that the management was well-informed or that there was any chance of me being able to think, or of any of us to be able to think? It was an exercise in power. The head of the department at one end of the table, the deputy head at the other. A tribunal, not a place to think.

  • I am 29.

    I know I am 29 because I have my 30th birthday in France. It was one of the worst birthdays of my life. My husband works as a consultant and is away from Paris for three or four nights a week. On my birthday, he comes home and goes straight to bed. There is an enormous bag full of various medicines on his bed. That was my 30th birthday.

    We are in a doctor’s surgery on Glebe Point Road in Sydney. My husband will be leaving for Paris in a few days - not on holidays or on business, but to live. Once he has found a job, I will follow.

    The results are not good and confirm what our worst fears. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to have children naturally.

    A mixture of relief at knowing and desperate disappointment. And fear of the uncertainty of the future.

    We are in a doctor’s surgery in Paris. The doctor is an IVF specialist. His offices are on the Champs Elysées and have plush, deep blue carpet on the floor and statues placed in alcoves and original artwork on the walls. The overall impression is of wealth, vast wealth.

    His inner surgery is dark, like a cave or an expensive, exclusive restaurant. It speaks of intimacy and hushed, private conversations and deals being done and power.

    The doctor’s hand, when I shake it, is surprisingly soft. A hand that has had moisturiser applied to it every day.

    This surgery does not speak of caring for the individual or kindness or putting the patient first.

    Despite all this, he is a good doctor. Competent. But competence doesn’t get us there.

    I am in another doctor’s surgery in Paris. This doctor does scans. I have been having blood tests every day or so and the level of whatever that hormone might be is going up, as are our hopes. It seems that I am pregnant. We are trying not to hope too much, but it is difficult not to.

    This doctor squeezes the gel out of the tube onto my stomach and moves the probe backwards and forwards across my skin while she watches the screen. There is a heartbeat. She swings the screen around to show me. It is faint, but it is there. This will all turn out OK in the end.

    I start to imagine how our baby will be - will she lie in my arms and look up at me with blue eyes, like mine, or will she have brown eyes like my husband?

    A few days later, I am in the same doctor’s surgery. The surgery of the doctor who does the scans. She squeezes gel out onto my stomach and moves the probe backwards and forwards across my skin. She looks and looks, but there is nothing to see. No more heartbeat. The small collection of cells that might have become a baby - they were not developed enough to be called a foetus - is dead.

    The soft-handed doctor organises for the collection of cells to be removed in a clinic. When I am there, a nurse hisses at me because she thinks I am having an abortion. I am, but she doesn’t know why. She criticises me while my heart bleeds.

    I return to the soft-handed doctor’s surgery - the surgery with the thick dark-blue carpet. I thought that perhaps I had got it wrong and there was still a fertilised egg that had been frozen. The doctor says no, there are no more eggs. He tells his secretary not to charge me for the consultation.

  • I don’t know what the room will be like. I have never been there before.

    The streets are quiet early in the day on a Sunday. I don’t know this part of Paris. Dread weighs on my heart. I want it to be so good, I want everyone to be amazed by my voice, by how I touch them, by how extraordinary I am. And I fear that I will be so bad.

    I climb the stairs to the second floor where some of the others have already arrived.

    The audience files in and sits down.

    I sing my duos, my trios, my ensembles, and everything is fine.

    But when it is time for my solo, I know even before I step in front of the audience that it will not go well.

    The pianist plays the introduction and I start to sing.

    I sound like a total beginner, even though I have been singing for fifteen years. My throat seizes up and the sound is thin and so very tight. I know I can sing well but when I am up there, in front of all those eyes, nothing comes out. My voice comes and goes, a few notes are OK but then it closes down again. I can feel myself getting hotter and hotter and the blood rushes to my face. It is so frustrating, and the harder I try, the worse it gets.

    All those eyes looking away, as embarrassed as I am.

    All those eyes. All those too kind eyes. Too many eyes.