Writer's Write

but sometimes they just stare at flowers

The woman who bought my grandmother’s flat after she died had first been friends with my grandmother’s second husband. After the second divorce, they remained friends, but not great friends, and the dinner parties did not hold. She came to the funeral, and the wake in the flat, then emailed asking about buying it. She needed a new London base; she ran a successful literary agency. She loved the flat, especially the deep pink bathroom.

So that was how, seven years later, when I was 22 and fresh out of university, I ended up in my grandmother’s living room being told that I wasn’t a writer. The wallpaper was the same, I stared at it and smiled. I tried not to cry when I went to the toilet and was enveloped by pink. I didn’t go upstairs to the bedroom where me, my mum, aunt and cousin had tried on granny’s dresses, divvying up the rags.

I sat opposite this other lady, whose house it was. She had lived there longer than granny ever did. She told me about remodelling the kitchen, how much better her design was than granny’s, “I can’t see how she thought that had made sense!” she said, referring to the shape of counter tops from my childhood that I couldn’t remember.

After I agreed about the ingenuity of the new kitchen island, we moved onto my writing. “The thing is,” she said, “Writer’s write. They write all the time! You don’t write all the time, do you?” I tried to protest, “I feel lost without a notebook on me” I said, “no, no” she said, “you are not producing, so you – you’re not a writer.” I mumbled about my dissertation, but she wasn’t listening, and I had heard all I needed to. What did I know? She was a seasoned professional, she knew writers, hundreds of them, she worked with them, she knew their energies and dispositions, and she knew that mine didn’t match up. I was not a writer.

I left my granny’s house both incensed and deflated. I still wrote, but if I didn’t write for a while, I was sure that it was proof of my not being a writer. Actions considered, I am a waitress and a bride. I serve tables, scroll Pinterest and email caterers. But being a writer isn’t just about writing, is it? It is about living and observing too. My Substack absence began with two big essay deadlines, then two exams, then applications to the next thing. A holiday, a house move, a new job.

I wanted to write about it all, to pause and remember and savour it. My walks through Manhattan. Catching the New York Philharmonic by chance in Prospect Park; lying on the grass reading as the music played – my feet cold and my stomach full of dosa. The fabric flower factory I visited; the boxes of hand-sewn, hand-dyed flowers that made me feel five-years-old. I was there for over two hours, diving into box after box, finding the perfect roses and peonies and gardenias, satin, taffeta, organza. Why couldn’t I sew? Why didn’t I go into textiles? Or even just something more visual, perhaps I’m not a writer.

I went to a vintage lingerie shop and found even more shiny satins. The shop lady, who had owned it for fifty years, told me that there was nothing for her in England, for we had wasted all our silk on parachutes. We had an argument about whether I could wear a nightie for my nupitals, and she told me she had worn nighties to both of her son’s weddings (she walked, so Victoria Beckham could run).

It was the start of June, and the real flowers were as plump as the fabric ones. There were roses the colour of lavender soap. Petals covered brownstone steps and swayed next to flags. Do I want to be a florist?

My laptop keyboard broke. I submitted my application for clinical training on my phone. My screentime was through the roof.

When I walked past a place called “Rosa’s Pizza” I peeked inside and took a photo of the tiles spelling out my name. I looked up and saw all the servers wearing T-shirts with a rose motif in one corner, I asked to buy one and they gave me two. On the back it said: “Rosa’s: It’s Not Easy”. True, I thought.

The sun was setting as my plane stood on the runway. It was huge and orange.

Upon landing, I had two days to pack up our flat and move. We were into a heatwave by then; one of our moving guys grabbed an anti-bacterial kitchen wipe and tried to mop his brow with it, “STOP!” we screamed.

Our bedroom still has no curtains. I curse about it every night when one or both of us has to stick up the baby blackout blind that we bought as a “temporary measure”. But when we rip it down in the morning, the trees outside are mesmerising, and I am glad no fabric disrupts them in the day.

I should write about those trees. I should write about moving house, about New York. But then, work, furniture-building, friend’s birthdays, being back at school. But writer’s write! I tell myself angrily. I sit myself back in my grandmother’s living room, the new kitchen island in my peripheral.

“So you — you’re not a writer.”

I look closer, I am wearing that Zara polka dot dress that I always wore then. Oh, I think. I gave Ruby that dress. She cut it into a vest, a cute little cami. There’s someone new in that flat too. I walk past it often, even more now that I have moved further into southeast London. I wonder if they’ve remodelled the kitchen. Is the bathroom still pink?

The dress is a vest, the bathroom is blue, and I — I’m still a writer.