chapters

we remember what we pay attention to

My new book - A Brain That Breathes: Essential habits for an overwhelming world, is available for pre-order now. I started writing it after a period of exhaustion prompted me to better understand my brain and what it needs for clarity, contentment and creativity. What I learnt really changed my life — not in the tired-woman-becomes-balanced-and-organised way, but more in the I don’t feel so rushed now; I’m much more settled.

Pre-orders make such a difference to a book’s success. Won’t it be lovely for you to receive a package on your doorstep in the early days of January when everyone is thinking “It’s the new year! What grand changes am I going to make so I’m a better human?” and then…A Brain That Breathes comes in and says, kindly but also very clearly:

you don’t need to be better, but let me show you how a bit of breathing space in your day will make you feel a bit more like yourself; a contented human and not so much an overwhelmed one.

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On Friday I watched my firstborn graduate from school. A girl was singing a Fleetwood Mac song when we walked into the gymnasium to take our seat and of course I started crying - and then laughing because I was crying. It was one of those moments that felt so huge and also really ordinary.

Afterwards, the graduates filed out of the room to bagpipes and applause and that was it; one life chapter ending, a turning of the page, open space in front of them.

One of the most fascinating facts I came across in my book research is that the brain – more specifically the hippocampus – segments each day into chapters, a neurological filing system that actively organises our experiences according to meaning based on what we care about and what we’re paying attention to. The details we notice influence each new chapter in our life story, the one that is noted and stored in our memory like a script. In our truest form, we are creatures searching for meaning, and our memories are ordered accordingly.

I think about this often, what the chapters are titled, how big they are, the details that are being stored for safe keeping. I hone in on the what we’re paying attention to and I wonder: is there a chapter in my brain called: scrolling? Ugh!

There would have been over 600 people at the graduation and I could see my 18-year-old from where I was sitting. To the sweet background music of Landslide I started thinking about our life and how we’ve grown up together. I birthed him when I was 23 and then slowly unfurled into motherhood, feeling untethered and deeply uncertain in that first year, especially. I didn’t know much about babies then but in retrospect I can see with immense clarity that he made that transition as gentle as possible for me.

We now know that in pregnancy, the baby’s cells migrate through the placenta and into the mother’s bloodstream, lodging in tissues and organs for decades. It’s called foetal microchimerism; the scientific explanation of what we feel in our bodies as a cellular connection, a cellular love. This is relatively new science; there is still so much we don’t know.

There is so much we don’t know about so many things. This uncertainty is such a normal and expected part of life and yet we are, generally speaking, so desperate for predictability; we spend so much of our time organising and controlling what we can. Of course we feel better if we know what’s coming next — even our brain prefers a set plan.

But we don’t know and so we reflect on what’s been and feel anxious about what’s to come and rarely do we sit in the quiet stillness of now. Perhaps because both ‘quiet’ and ‘stillness’ feel unattainable, even unrecognisable…because they look like ‘nothing’.

And yet, there are so many of those quiet moments that come to mind when I reflect on my eighteen years of motherhood. We always think we’ll remember the big, brash events — the ones where we celebrate, cheer and and applaud. But rather, lodged in one chapter of my memories are the glances and observations; checking to see if he’s still asleep, looking in the rearview mirror at his face while I’m driving, watching him curled up on the couch as he turns the pages of a book.

There are so many more pieces to the story but they’re the ones that deserve to be cradled in my head and my heart, not for sharing or show. Becoming a mother at 23 felt like the most normal experience to me; like it was always meant to be that way — and it changed everything, forever.

When we are pulled into the moment by the people who need us, as we lean into moments of care, we learn that the only way to be in quiet and stillness is to be tender. We cry more here, we learn the incredible power of the ordinary — even when it feels monotonous and banal.

Tiny moments make a life, don’t they. In our memories, patched together in whichever way they land, is a story of who we are…and also who we’re becoming.

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other things

• I discuss how I found breathing space on The World Needs Creatives podcast

• no one is giving Helen Garner awards just because she’s ‘old and crabby’…

“There are some very well known writers – I won’t name names – but to me they are really terrible. They erect a trembling tabernacle and I want to knock it down and see what is left in the ruins.

What I really love is people writing the way they talk. Sometimes writers need to have their arse kicked around the block. They are so bloody defensive. I do feel for them, but I see a lot of writers who would be really good if only they would listen to their editor.”

• as soon as my local bookstore calls to tell me The Mushroom Tapes has arrived, I’ll be on my way

• one of my favourite newsletters

• more Garner

Till next week, take care x