How to Survive a Sleepless Night

Thursday, June 16^th 2:30pm, Somewhere in the West of Ireland, 2016.

Dear Reader,

Remember Hocus Pocus? That was such a good movie. Why didn’t I watch that instead…?

     It’s no secret that I love watching Horror movies. I love knowing that something wicked this way comes, and it’s going to jump out in front of me, yet I still scream like it was a complete surprise the whole time. I love scolding the people behind the screen for going to investigate that strange noise coming from the basement (Just call somebody and get out of there!) Most of all, I love aggressively cheering on the protagonist when they finally stab the masked murderer, or perform an exorcism on their possessed loved one.

     I say all this, but no horror movie has ever made me wake up at 3:07 3 in the morning and kept me awake all night like The Conjuring 2 did a few nights ago. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved it. It grabbed my attention right from the very start and up until the very end too. It was just as good, if not better than the first movie, and it was scarier. And I don’t want to tell you anything about it. I want you to go and see it, and if it happens that you wake up at 3:07* because of ghosts in your dreams, then you can come back here for a step by step guide on how to survive a sleepless night of this kind.

*It was not actually 3:07 when I woke up, so don’t be alarmed. Also, if you understood that 3:07 was a reference to the first Conjuring movie then yay, please be my friend!;)

Let’s do this.

1)

Put that maroon smock dress that’s hanging over your wardrobe back inside your wardrobe so it won’t escape, because in the dark, it resembles a ghost. (Obviously)

Find an array of dresses you used to wear to nightclubs when you were eighteen, because when you were eighteen, nightclubs were your thing, especially the awful ones where the smoke machine created a thick fog around the dancefloor so that the shadows of those unknown creepy stares and the friendly faces you knew from playschool were indistinguishable.

 Those nightclubs, where the remixes were remixed so you didn’t recognise most of the songs you danced to. And even despite the fog and the remixes, you loved those nights. You lived for them, because it’s where everyone went on a Saturday night for some reason, and you always had fun because it only mattered that you were with your friends, not where you were.

Stroke each dress and remember:

Pink and black lace for a friend’s birthday, bronze sequins for getting to know your creative writing pals, cascading olive green to celebrate the end of exams.

Sigh, and consider giving these dresses away.

Laugh, because you know it will never happen.

2)

Netflix is essential. If you don’t have Netflix, download it. If you don’t want to pay for it, delete your account after 27 days. For now, Netflix is essential.

 Watch a television series called How To Get Away With Murder, and realise that you’re not that into the plot, but the actors are cute and talented, and it’s fun to imagine your college professor having that much sass.

Start to wonder if you might have a problem with committing to TV Shows because it’s not like you’re really watching them when you watch them. You’re glancing at your phone now and then, and worrying that whatever you’re watching, is much better than, and too similar to a short story you wrote once upon a time.

3)

Find a collection of private letters you wrote to people in 2013/14, with no intention whatsoever of actually sending them. 

Read the letter you wrote to a guy you dated in a blast from the past; 2 pages describing blinding attractiveness, and not even a whole page to describe personality or common interests or real reasons to date someone.

Start to wonder what the hell you were thinking.

Question why you ever liked him in the first place.

Tell yourself that it was an exaggerated façade that would not have lasted.

Give yourself a pat on the back when you realise that you’ve learned a lot and grown as a person since then.

Gush over the letters you wrote for the friends you weren’t that close to, but still really liked.

Consider yourself so lucky now that they are your close friends, who still glow with the redeeming qualities you mentioned in your letters.

4)

Trek mindlessly through your twitter feed, only to discover that most of the accounts you follow are from News’ websites.

Ask yourself if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Sigh in sadness through survival stories from the mass shooting in Orlando.

Gasp, with a hand over your heart as you think about that poor little boy in Paris who is now an orphan.

Remember that some time you must watch that movie recommended to you by a friend, about child soldiers in Africa.

Curse the world for being so messed up.

But acknowledge that it’s good to stay informed about its happenings.

Simultaneously consider to follow other alternative twitter accounts in order to avoid this serial heartbreak.

Or at least, reduce it to semi-frequent heartbreak.

5)

Listen to Twenty one Pilots, because there’s never a bad time to listen to Twenty one Pilots.

Listen to Ode to Sleep, because it’s so relevant right now.

6)

Take out your earphones and open the curtains, because you’ve just noticed the light trying to peek in behind them.

Sigh and listen to the birds you were oblivious to for the past hour when you were listening to Twenty one Pilots.

7)

Check your mirror a few times to make sure that you’re the only person in the room.

Laugh at the lipstick scribblings your best friend drew on there on New Year’s Eve of 2013.

Shake your head, knowing that you’re still never going to wipe them off because you never use that mirror anyway. The lighting is too dark.

Reminisce over that night, because it was one of the few New Year’s Eves you enjoyed.

You and two of your best friends had a chilled night in a bar, laughing and writing messages on the drink coasters.

Other years, strangers spilled beer in your hair, and you got nervous being stuck is such large crowds.

You hated the pressures of New Years’ Resolutions and having to make yourself a better person, when really, there was nothing wrong with still watching re-runs of Friends all the time.

Wonder where that lipstick went to.

8)

Count all of the photo booth pictures that were taken and collected during nights out over the past three years.

41

Suddenly feel the weight of all those late nights.

Go back to bed.

9)

Try to sleep. (But it won’t work)

Re-discover your videos folder on your laptop with 70 videos in it of you being silly with your friends.

That time three of the guys came to visit you in Paris.

And so did your best friend, and the guys had no idea that she was coming so you got to surprise them outside of the metro.

That time you were in the car with your creative writing friends, and the music in the back seat was too loud, so the video is just you with your hands over your ears, looking terrified.

That time you went to see Florence & the Machine live in Dublin and you sang along to every word.

10)

Finally decide that you should just get up and go downstairs.

Think that you are deserving of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice-cream for breakfast…

Yes, yes you are.

Download an old episode of Desperate Housewives on the TV, and watch it with droopy eyelids, and in between spoons of ice-cream.

Finish the ice-cream.

Hear your Mam boiling the kettle and rattling with plates in the kitchen.

Know that there’s absolutely no way that it could be a ghost, so you

fall asleep

(At last)

*Results may vary

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x

Thoughts From the Laundry Room

DIARY EXTRACT

(Edited for the purpose of this post, and to decode my messy handwriting)

Wednesday, April 6^th, 8:00pm, Paris, 2016

  

Dear Reader,

     I finished writing my book last night, and it wasn’t like the John Williams’ Jurassic Park theme moment of pure awe that I had expected it to be. At all.

     I froze for a second, and then I burst into tears and I couldn’t stop crying. Mam rang me at that exact moment, so naturally I panicked and hid under the bed covers with Manchot the penguin teddy. So no, writing a book doesn’t make you seem more grown up or better than anyone else. It wrings you like a wet towel ‘till you’re nothing but a crumpled heap of a girl with a penguin, crying over people that don’t even exist. 

     Finally, moments later, when I was somewhat more composed and had apologised to Manchot and tidied his soggy fur with a hair dryer, I called Mam back. But as I muttered a hello, I crumbled.

‘Ah! I’m just mourning my characters, Mam!’

And it’s funny, because as a ‘listener’ in most friendship groups and ‘designated breakfast cooker’ -  the least rattled wolf in the pack after a vodka-fuelled night on the town, I would not consider myself a crier at all, at least not for anything that’s actually sad. It’s the moving things that get me every now and then. A heart felt birthday card. Irish immigrants coming home to Ireland to surprise their parents. A free cupcake. And of course, most of the fiction that I read.

I felt stupid, crying over fictional characters. But hey, they’re real to me. As far as my writing went: I meant to make it a bitter-sweet ending, which it was, but I also rushed through it stressfully and I think I ended up making it more bitter than sweet.

I really don’t want to cry again though, especially not in the laundry room, where I’m sitting between two girls I’ve never met. What if I started full on blubbering, and then they’d ask me if I was okay, and it’d be too hard for me to answer in a comprehensible way, 1) because who can understand a crying girl? And 2) because who can understand my accent mixed with tears and French? It’s like trying to open a can of beans with a safety scissors. So… I ought to change the subject. 

I’ve become seriously obsessed with a new band recently called Twenty One Pilots, and I’d never heard of them before this because apparently, I live under a rock. No wait, I think I had heard the name before. I just didn’t want to look them up. I heard that they sang rap songs, you know, not my scene at all. 

Dear God, I sound like I’m centuries old. I love this band now though, so my oldness has been cancelled out. (Right?) I came across them eventually in the recommended videos/bottomless pit section of YouTube, and wooaahh… it’s like, there is rap, but there is also singing, and sometimes cute ukulele. It’s like alternative-indie-rap, like the Eminem genre mixed with the Coldplay genre and it’s just the coolest. 

I haven’t been this obsessed with a band since I was 15. To be honest though, my obsession with the band I loved at 15 (and still love) started when I was around 9, years before we had a broadband connection or satellite TV. (Haha it wasn’t even that long ago, but that’s Irish country side life for ya) I couldn’t watch music videos, or even stay on a band website long enough for it to load before a sibling or parent told me to get off the internet because they needed to use the phone line. 

So I loved this indie-synth band, yet I didn’t know what they looked like or who they were. I couldn’t see their faces anywhere because of the dial-up internet connection. Mam let us put on our ‘Now’ CD in the car, that had all of the best current music on it, but we had lost the case for it so I couldn’t see the track names. I’d say I went around for a solid week quizzing people about that song, until finally I discovered what it was, and that, dear reader, is the story of how the first CD I ever bought was ‘Hot Fuss’ by The Killers.

     Bringing it back to Twenty One Pilots – It really does feel like I’m 15 again. It sure is nice to go back to the fun part of being a teenager. Yes, there was one little fun part, and that was obsessing over bands and singers and movie stars, and books of course.

     Some might say you should focus on more important things as a teenager, but hey, those bands act as a distraction from hormones for example, or having to do the Leaving Cert exam.

     In other news, it’s almost just a week until I’ll be off on my holidays to Toulouse, Barcelona, and Morocco. I can’t wait! I just need a break from all of the lesson plans, the Irish assignments, the book writing, the weird block I’ve had with self-confidence lately. It’s the self-doubt that comes with being a writer. And yet even with all of the hard times, I know I want to keep writing forever because it’s such escapism, and it’s so nice to see my words forming together in a page's pretty patterns.

     My clothes will just be another five minutes in the washing machine, I’d say, and I already feel less stressed from writing to you. Plus, I always have the song ‘Stressed Out’ by Twenty One Pilots to listen to when I’m up to my ears in TO DO Lists. (But my personal favourite song of theirs is ‘We Don’t Believe What’s on TV’)

     I don’t know how to finish this diary entry today. It’s like I’m just going to thank you in Portuguese, or say goodbye to you in Italian like I so often do at the end, with no proper resolution, and just a third cup of tea in waiting when I put my writing utensils away. Well, sorry, but that is what’s going to happen. Because look, even with distracting myself with tea and Twenty One Pilots, I’m still pretty torn up and weepy about finishing my book last night and I can’t hide that. That’s just how it is. There is no resolution.

     However, I will give you a more alternative ending this time, rather than just the Portuguese thank you or Italian goodbye you’ve seen so many times on its own.

 I was looking through the notes section on my phone today where I often store my random thoughts, quotes from friends, or descriptions that might come in handy for future poems. And, I found a list of four names that I thought sounded magical enough to make note of, names that I came across on dilapidated tomb stones in Southampton’s eerie graveyard last February. (…But, that’s a story for another day)

     I’ll leave you with these names to mull over:

______________________________________________________________

Percival James

Samuel Stables

Reginald Noel

Rosina Mist ______________________________________________________________

     My clothes are clean now, and I am teething for that cup of tea and a cuddle with Manchot the penguin.

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x

The F Word

Friday, June 3^rd 5:17pm, Somewhere in the West of Ireland, 2016

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I put pen to paper, and the pen just sits in my limp hand. It finally moves, only to scratch on the paper. I curse under my breath, and tourists’ heads swivel round, gawking at the girl in the grass who’s scribbling in her notebook and not staying inside the lines.

It’s nice to be home,

Especially now when the sun has actually come out in Ireland (which rarely happens), yet even now, when the heatwave that was promised to us weeks ago has finally arrived, I am cynical about the weather. I walk around the river wrapped in cardigans, refusing to wear sun cream, and hoping that the black fabric will save my skin from sunburn. I cross my fingers and hope that my skin will not sink into the warm Irish atmosphere. Just not this time. Any other time would suffice.

     It’s because I’m leaving again soon for work, for Italy, in two weeks.

 And I can’t wait.

I don’t like getting too comfortable at home.

Not now, please.

Being at home is perfect for when I have a job at home, or when I am studying in University at home, because then I’m doing something, but for the last month I’ve been unproductive, and I don’t do well at the whole ‘summer holidays’ thing. I know people who strive for this time, and fair play, I wish I could do that. But the summer break this time around is making me go slightly mad; Binge watching Pretty Little Liars in the house where I grew up, with a Full-Fridge Syndrome relapse so it’s like I’m a child again.

     I don’t want to arrive excited in Italy, only for my knees to buckle at the prospect of having to work again. I don’t want my Irish home to be my holiday; This 7 week hiatus between my French adventure and Italian voyage. But now I see that there are only two weeks left in my Irish… ‘rest’ (?), and I’ve wasted it on Netflix, and thinking about writing but then not actually writing. So what do I do now to make up for it?

I write.

At last I write, because my Irish summer turns to me with the version of myself who is unproductive and often unconfident in her own writing. I don’t like that girl. I thought I left her behind in my chronic pj-wearing school days.

     At last, I’ve just kicked myself in the face (not literally) and I’ve said to myself: ‘Get on with it, just write. Who cares if it’s terrible? Prove to yourself that Irish summers can be productive too.’

And thank Mother of Dragons, the second draft of my book has now seen the light of this beautiful Irish day, even if I really can’t stay inside the lines.

     I think this heat disturbs my sleep and makes me dream more often, about Paris. Isn’t it ironic; dreaming about Ireland when I was in France, and now dreaming about France when I’m in Ireland? Still, I’m glad it is so, because this way, I’m reminded of my hipster outings to Parisienne cafés where I wrote words by the thousands and it makes me say hey, I’m able to write and the only person standing in my way right now is me.

     My dreams always bring me back to Easter Sunday of this year in Shakespeare & Company, the famous book shop across the road from Notre Dame Cathedral; Scholars’ quotes, and notes of inspiration printed on the walls, with a piano & antique library waiting upstairs. It’s a cosy place, and it probably has too many shelves and not enough room for people to amble about, but every crevice is a safe haven for any writer riddled with self-doubt. That, combined with the old book smell is what gives the shop its merit, I think.

     It could also be so famous because it is home to the greatest secret of Paris. Well, maybe not the best secret of all time, but it certainly is the best in my eyes.

Every Sunday, in the old library upstairs, Panmelys, a lovely Welsh lady hosts a Mad Hatter’s tea party for budding poets, or else just anyone who likes to sit around drinking tea, eating biscuits, and listening to English poetry recitals. Hordes of people are ushered in every time and it gets a little crowded, but more people makes for more poetry and more anecdotes. And Panmelys calls them in, saying: ‘Come in, come in, it’s a Mad Hatter’s tea party and everyone is welcome!’

‘Come with a poem in your pocket, and a song in your heart’.

When Easter Sunday came around, I had already been to my fair share of tea parties, yet my feet tapped nervously through my metro commute. The poem I had prepared for this tea party was very dear to my heart, and I was worried that the tea partiers wouldn’t understand. It wouldn’t have bothered me if they didn’t like it, but I just needed them to know why I had bothered to write it in the first place. I mean, it had a point.

The usual pleasantries ensued in the book shop:

‘Come with a poem in your pocket, and a song in your heart’.

There was a woman with impossibly long hair and a gorgeous singing voice who sang a song half in English and half in Spanish. Then, Californian twins who looked like Wesley from The Princess Bride arrived, sitting down discretely at opposite sides of the room. This had Panmelys comically glancing left to right, left to right, confirming that they were identical twins.

     One of them did a perfect Frank Sinatra impression, and the other was a living, breathing Louis Armstrong. It was like those character quirks that I would write about, and I smiled thinking about the fact that they were not characters, but real people.

     

Finally, it came to me, and my voice quivered, and my words ran too fast but nonetheless I recited my poem. I introduced it first by its title: ‘The F Word’, and Panmelys grimaced in the most animated way, like she so often does when the tea goes cold, or when she can’t find a poem she thought was packed in her folder. I giggled, my nerves whittling away, and I told her that it was not the F word that she thought it was going to be. That was a good thing then, because Panmelys hates the F Word. And she mumbled to herself about the F Word; would it be ‘Father’? What would it be?

     So I read it aloud, and the tea partiers clapped. No one thought I was crazy or overreacting. A lot of people, women and men, related to what I had to say. All I could say was that it was such a shame that I had to worry about it in the first place, because this world’s ideals had programmed me to think

that I was being controversial,

when in reality, my poem was real.

It was our cruel reality.

     So during this heat wave of disturbed sleep, dreams of Paris and self-doubt, I can only hope to feel inspired again and again. When I’m sitting in the grass by the river with pen to paper and frustration laid bare in my scribblings, all I need to do is think of The F Word, and the warm response it received despite my feet tapping nervously through my metro commute, to that tea party on Easter Sunday of this year. Now, not only do I hope, but I know.

I know

that this second draft of my book will be written, certainly not in its entirety over the next two weeks, but it will be written.

I know it will,

 even if I can’t colour inside the lines.

*

The F Word

Late at night,

I walk home

with keys poking out

between my knuckles.

There’s a bottle opener

‘cause I’m a girl

who likes to drink wine.

A bronze Eiffel Tower

‘cause I’m a girl

with wings,

always flying the nest.

House keys,

and a master key

‘cause I’m a girl

who is also a teacher.

The master key is sharpest,

says a siren in my brain

to my rain-sodden converse,

to my doe-eyes peeking ‘round

for the shadows,

and to my pricked ears

listening out for the cat’s meow.

It probably won’t happen.

Not to me.

But it could.

Like the scoffing,

the jeering,

the cat calls.

Because one day,

somebody on the Spider-web

said that my body

wasn’t my own.

Hey house fly,

you’re a prude.

Hey fruit fly,

you’re a slut!

We are all flies,

swarming behind the screen

and always landing

in a strangle

with The Spider.

The Spider is everyone,

be it male or female

who lists Cinderella

as the Number 1

“Girl Power” movie

for children on Netflix.

Girls,

sing through your tears

and wish on the stars.

Magic can make your

dreams come true,

because face it:

There is nothing you can do

without a man.

Boys,

don’t be yourselves.

Be chivalrous and boring

and robotic and adoring,

because

my dear fool,

you are no man

without a woman.

Tut tut,

says The Spider,

real boys don’t cry.

Crying is for pretty girls;

Those dainty flies

for boys to find.

Spider legs

pull me tighter now;

My skin turning blue,

and my ears willing

to close up forever,

never again to hear

that I am an advocate

for the F word

and I should be ashamed.

That

apparently,

I’d like nothing more

than to burn bras with

jaded men-haters

when honestly,

I would much rather be

forever in the company

of feminist academics

who like wine.

So that one day,

when I have a daughter of my own,

she can safely walk home

with no keys

poking out

between her knuckles.

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x