Where The Wind Blows

This week I taught a seminar for writers at Antioch University, Los Angeles. I know, catch me right? Next time you see me, you’ll need to be calling me Ma’am.

The lecture is called “The Seriousness of Comedy - How and Why to put laughs in your Drama.” and is actually something I really do care about.

I like a joke, or at least a bit of light relief. I think there’s always a place for humor.

In some of my darkest moments, there has been hilarity. I still smile thinking of a time when, just back from hospital post reconstructive surgery, wearing a giant muumuu (for that was all that would fit around my bruised and swollen body) I’d hobbled into the kitchen where my sister, Janice, was making tea. Out of the blue Cindy Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ popped up on Pandora.

Janice and I exchanged a look and a grin, and like giant land- locked synchronized- swimmers, we dropped into a dance that was as ungainly as it was hilarious. Sure there was shit to deal with, sure there was a ton of uncertainty, but you can’t miss out on a dancing opportunity. Life can be a bit dramatic but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of brightness between takes.

As Mark and the kids would no doubt tell you, I periodically sulk with the TV when there’s yet another ‘bleak’ ‘gritty’ ‘conspiracy’ drama. Because honestly, over the past five years or so, I’ve had my fill of that in real life. Jeez, some days just looking at the news has been a white-knuckle ride.

And any new political dramas where the President might get kidnapped or The Prime Minister is in danger - uhm color me, I don’t care. Now, I am not saying that the whole world of television should be nothing more than pleasant detective stories set in picturesque towns, where very gruesome murders happen but nobody’s really that upset, and they still hold their annual bake sale. (Though obviously, I don’t object to them.)

But I do think in terms of writing, you always have to look for a bit of brightness, because in my experience, misery can come knocking on your door without the need for an invitation. Joy sometimes needs a little more encouragement

Anyway, I was a bit nervous about the seminar, because although I am totally and utterly connected to the subject matter, it’s been a long time since I was a college student myself. And times have changed.

Back in my day, everything was an ‘in person’ experience. Fax machines were this crazy new invention we were all very excited about. We wrote with pens and paper. If you wanted to find something out, you had to get a book from the library. Now kids have every single piece of information they could ever want in a little device in the palm of their hands.

So, for all of my absolute belief in the content of the lecture, I could not help but come to the conclusion that in terms of college grooviness, I am an old fart. But that conclusion wasn’t of any practical use. Old fart or not, they’d invited me to do a seminar. And I had agreed. And so a seminar must be done.

Then, it dawned on me that a while ago I’d conveniently had kids, and the eldest one is an actual college student. Result. So, I asked him what he expected from a lecture.

He considered. “Do you want an honest answer?’ he said.

“Of course,” I nodded, earnestly.

“ Well, I always hope it will be interesting, but I generally accept I’ll be bored,” he said, nonchalantly.

This was news to me. “No,” I said, surprised.

“Yeah. It’s not that big a deal. It depends on whether its something I’m interested in to start with, and also whether the lecturer is interested in being interesting. What about you? What would you expect from a lecture?”

I hadn’t really thought about it before. “I dunno.” I said.

Then I smiled, as my mind took me back to the days of pens and paper and new fangled fax machines, and one particular lecture.

The lecturer I’m sure was a lovely woman in real life. In terms of lecturing though, she was tricky. She specialized in poetry and always gave off the air that she would rather be on some windswept hill writing verse in a notebook with a quill. She wore flowery gypsy skirts and lacy shawls and spoke of stanzas and couplets in the gentlest voice so that you literally had to strain to hear her.

For all her sweetness, I used to dread her classes. Either I was worried I was going to fall asleep, or I’d end up triggered with all sorts of prejudices and fears about how writing was no job for a real human, and I should give the whole thing up and try and get a job in the post office instead.

Then, during one lecture when we were drowning in the tedium of her whispering on about figurative language, rhyme and meter, she surprised the class by letting out a rip-roaring fart. It was spectacular. It was literally the kind of fart a rugby player after quaffing 7 pints of Guinness and a couple of Vindaloos would be proud of.

(Later students would talk about the fart being so loud, they saw her gypsy skirt billow with the force of it.)

There was a moment where none of us quite knew what to do. We sat motionless, partly through shock, but mostly trying to keep ourselves from laughing.

Then she smiled. A gentle, wistful smile, and said in her whispery voice. “I am so sorry about that. I must have had a bad pie at lunchtime.”

That lecture I remember. That is the one that sticks in my mind.

I told Fergus. He thought it was funny, but not as funny as I still do. As funny as I probably always will.

“Lecturing is really just people saying stuff to other people.” Ferg said, “And you always say to us that we should say what we mean. So just say stuff that you mean, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

So I did. And they were lovely. Hoorah for Antioch. And I didn’t fart loudly. (But then I wasn’t wearing a flowery gypsy skirt, so it wouldn’t have been that funny if I had.) And neither did anyone else.

And I did say what I mean. And it was fine.

Misery is always easy to find. Joy often needs a little more encouragement. But it is always worth the effort.

Till next Sunday

xo

Hello there, my wee NFTV kitcheny friends,