POV - ur my bank account *cries in coin*

Friday 18 September 2020

POV - ur my bank account *cries in coin*

Bonjour!

In another episode of 'I Shit You Not,' I've decided I'm not busy enough being a 'Kerr'tastrophe as it is (creds @Sandra Holt) and am 'going home' (to a degree, I suppose - haha PUNS!) to do my Masters through Manchester Uni. 

Going home with an emphasis on 'to a degree' because I'm studying it online and part time because even I'm not stupid enough to do a full time MA with a full time job. So, looks like I'll still be in Landahn for the foreseeable future lolol (POV ur my bank account *cries in coin*). Jk, I love this city and I don't think I'll ever be done with it entirely, but, as always, Manny Repre-SENT xoxo

I always knew I'd be going back to get my MA sometime after I graduated in 2019. I love learning and making a complete fool of myself by trying to articulate stuff that I can barely understand. I was always going to study for my MA...even if I already have one in my surname...it was just a question of what I was going to do, and when I was going to do it.

Looking back, not jumping straight into an MA after third year was, hands down, the best decision I ever could have made. It gave me time to sort my life out a bit - esp with Corona. Nothing like being forced to stay inside to save your immunocompromised mate's life to make you stop and weigh up your options. I'm all for jumping headfirst into something but as the world came to a gradual standstill, so did I, to an extent. It made me realise that there's no real rush and understand that the sense of urgency and immediacy that I built my entire character on wasn't exactly a personality trait; it was a privilege. And, weirdly enough, accepting that I had to slow down helped me make this decision faster than I thought I could. Just call me Alanis Morissette, bcos "isn't it ironic? Don't you think?" 

I had had my toes dipped in too many different ponds and fingers in too many pies for far too long and, finally, I found my feet in the field I never thought I could worm my way into, figured things out as much as you can try to do when you're 22, and now I'm heading back to do what I love most (browsing through ASOS with a sweet student discount with a few tabs of Microsoft auto-recovered draft essay paragraphs open!) "Someboday come geeeet uurrr, she gon' be ay mayster!" - fingers crossed, anyway! 

I found the particular course earlier this year. I read the spec, fell in love, wrote a personal statement almost immediately and loaded it up to my application portal, but I never hit 'send' because, tbh, I didn't think I was capable or good enough or experienced enough in the field and all that stuff (I know I know she's a humble queen too, it's amazing xo). But it played on my mind for a good couple of months. It was my amazing newly-employed-graduate-graphic-fashion-designer-friend Benjamin who eventually convinced me to send it off. I received an email back a few weeks ago to confirm my offer and I'm over the moon! 

So for the next couple of years, I'm prepared to sacrifice my social life, sleep, and any other free time I may have for the sake of working towards getting another fancy piece of paper to prove how much I adore my job and what it is I'm doing and what I hope to do more long term. And I know it's gonna be tough but I want to do it so badly and I'm pretty sure that's half the battle. Plus, in the words of Graphic Fashion Designer Ben Holt, I'm "Kerry Fucking Maxwell." I can do anything 💪💁 (she says hesitantly.) 

What it most certainly means, though, is that any free time I already have is gonna be stretched to the max. So that probably means no more weekly/bi-weekly posts on here for a while but I'll do my best to show my face as often as I can - even if it is just me moaning on about something pointless or letting you in on some more I Got Locked Out stories (because, let's be honest, it's probs going to happen again!) If not that, then something else - I mean, a couple of weeks ago I managed to fall onto the lap of the only other human in the tube carriage xoxo rip me xoxo gone but never forgotten xoxo

So, yeah, your favourite 'Kerr'tastrophe is going to be fumbling her way through her twenties with even more on her plate - and I'm so excited for it. Life's boring only juggling a million things, anyway. Why not make it a million and one? 

All the love (as always) xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

yes that is a pen behind my ear no I don't know why xoxo

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Pulling Words Out of Your Fingers?

Tuesday 1 September 2020

Pulling Words Out of Your Fingers?

My dad thinks he's really funny (side note - he's not). In the most stereotypical paternal way, he tries to joke around by speaking in rhyme half the time (lol that was most certainly not intentional but am v impressed w myself!) 

I'm not slating my dad's sense of humour for a laugh by the way. I promise there's a reason behind it!

We're approaching his 51st birthday I know for a fact that no gift will top what we gave him 12 months ago. Last year, for the big 5-0, my siblings and I decided we’d do something hilarious and creative in honour of his long-time/poor-rhyme jokes. We're hardly a sentimental trio at the best of times so we really outdid ourselves. Basically, we compiled our favourite memories and stories and stuff then, on the Friday before his big day (the Sunday), I wrote a wee something for his gift. I say ‘wee something’ – who else has a whole anthology dedicated to their paternal existence? 

They're alright xoxo

50 poems for 50 years; it sounded like a grand idea at the time. In practice, it was probably the hardest thing I have ever written; emotionally, technically, whatever. I’m by no means a poet; I don’t read poetry, I don’t like it very much (sorry to every woman out there who read Rupi Kaur.) And trying to articulate all these stories down on paper in structure and pattern and rhyme was no easy feat. It took me, I remember, eight and a half hours all in all. I wrote it in Knock Airport’s bar after catching an early morning flight from Stansted, waiting for my family to arrive from Manny that evening.

I told Dad I was waiting for a lift from him and he must have thought I was crazy initially; I could have just caught a bus or rang some family and made my way into Westport easily enough but I don’t remember him questioning it too much at the time. What he did question, however, on Sunday afternoon after we gave him this book filled with rhyming stories waxing lyrical about how great he is was “how the fuck [we] did that?”

Ironically enough, explaining stories and words is the hardest thing for me to articulate. I don’t know about others but I never go into a Word document with a plan. I’ve always hated it – from essays to blog posts to Dad’s birthday anthology. It’s all well and good to go into a blank page with an outline or a plan of what we want to happen; we think we can create some sort of order and structure and have the whole thing figured out, but sometimes I think that words just need to tell themselves. Sometimes, sentences just take on a mind of their own and stories grow legs and arms and a spine and walk off in a direction you never intended. And it’s cool. Often it ends up being the best part of what you’re writing.  

It’s kind of like everything else in the world. Faith and patience are pretty much standard requirements when it comes to the everyday. Unsuccessfully pulling words out of your fingertips and onto your piece of paper has been a great lesson, in that respect; there are some things you just can’t force.

That’s how that anthology initially started. I pulled open a document and ended up distracted and frustrated because time was ticking and pressure was mounting and I had to finish it (Lol start it!) but, instead, I’d open up my laptop only to stare at a blank page for hours. Funny. That's how this blog post started too. Some things don't change, do they!?

Weeks turned into days and before I knew it, it was the 12th September and I had approximately 3 words written - "Happy Birthday, Dad." But when I was sat at a sticky table in the middle of an airport the size of a supermarket car park on the edge of a cliff, the words came. All 10,000 of them. And I know there is nothing like the pressure of a non-negotiable deadline and running the risk of ruining your father’s 50^th birthday to spur you onwards, but faith and patience were truly the driving force behind how we wrote it. You have to be patient enough to let go and take a step back. You have to have faith that the words might not be there right now, but they will be eventually. And sometimes there are none. And that’s ok too. Some things aren’t meant to be written, I suppose. They’d write themselves if they were.

Maybe it was the whiff of Guinness combined with jet fuel and a lack of sleep (this is peak accidental-freelancing-loving-life-time) which allowed the flood gates to open. Words poured onto the page and, in less than a day, 50 poems for 50 years were written and all that time spent on false starts and procrastinating and struggling was made up for.

Writing stuff challenges every belief I’ve ever had and, if you’re a human who has had to pick up a pen or type something out, you’ve probably thought the same thing. Maybe on a far less dramatic level bcos I think I'm getting carried away here but you (hopefully) get the vibe. Whether it’s for work or fun or school or whatever it is your working on, I can guarantee you’ve snapped your laptop shut and asked (probs out loud) who gave you permission to use words. Because it’s hard sometimes. Sometimes I wonder whether my stories are even worth telling because what’s so important about me and what I think and feel and whatever.

But at the heart of the matter, the world needs stories in whichever way we choose to tell them. I’m sure I’ve written that sentence before on here somewhere (or something eerily similar). But it’s true. Stories are what make us human. They're how we bond and connect and develop both as individuals and together. It’s where we find inspiration and learn from the world around us, listening to people we may never truly know beyond words on a page or in our ear or on a screen because we find out that our stories aren’t all that different.Behind The Scenes With An HS Survivor Our outcomes may be different and there might be a completely different set of characters and obstacles and stuff but at the end of the day, we are all just trying to get to that next page, innit.

Lol. Wow. Idek where that came from. Doubt it even made sense, really. See? Sometimes words just write themselves. Ps: this is my reminder to begin proofreading my work (no matter how much u try and deny it Kerry, they aren't Mona Lisas, they're poorly written and illogical words, fix the grammar!) 

And the weirdest part of the whole thing (as if it can’t get any weirder Kerry xoxo) is the end of a sentence. Like, a full stop has the option of opening up a brand new sentence or page or chapter. It can move onto something entirely different. We can pick up right where we left off. Or it can come, I suppose to a complete ‘full stop,’ in the most literal of sentences. The end.

And it’s when you write those two elusive words or you conclude your essay in a tight wordcount or a blog post just come to a natural conclusion that you realise that you’ve created something tangible that will live in the universe for as long as that story or essay or post will exist. Pretty sick, innit. Far better than the saying “you’re the author of your own life story” – which makes me gag every time I hear it because a) 'hear' as I would never say it myself unironically and b) it is so cheesy and disgustingly cringe bcos it's dramatic af but also true and that's a lot to handle at 9pm on a Tuesday. Because even though it’s true and you’re the master of fate and shite, what do you have to show for it beyond yourself? You don't exist forever. You're here and then you're gone. But what aren't gone are your stories. They last forever. Words last forever. On paper, on a screen, in speech, whatever you do with them and however you present them, they're all in your control. They leave something beyond you. Which is kind of frightening but also unbelievable because the lasting power words have and the legacy they leave and the cultures they create are immeasurable beyond belief.

So, to answer Dad's question almost a year later in a far more honest, explanatory way than a simple, awkward laugh: how do we do it? Dunno rlly. Just happens sometimes. Words always write themselves eventually, if they're meant to be written. They won't always be ground-breaking or revolutionary or, in the case of your anthology, poetic masterpieces but they tell the story they need to tell in the time they want to tell it. 

And with that full stop, seems like we've fallen into a natural conclusion. I'll stop now :). xoxo

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