I
love going to bed.
Before
you get carried away thinking this is going to get sordid, let me explain.
There’s
a moment – when I slide my toes down to the end of the cool sheets, when I pull
the light-as-a-feather doona up to my neck and rest my head on the soft pillow –
when I’m in heaven.
It’s
a moment when I reflect on how lucky I am to have a roof over my head, food to
eat, and a healthy body. A moment when I think I love white sheets. How
could you have any other colour? And there’s something about crisp cotton too. And the
window being open and letting in the night air. And the rustle of the palm
trees outside.
Last
night I found myself sighing out loud.
Actually it was more like a groan. A happy groan.
And the loved one looked
at me over the top of his reading glasses and said, “What is your problem?”
I
said, “I feel like a bear.”
I
don’t look anything like a bear so why I said that I’m not entirely sure.
I
think it was good to get the weight off my feet. I think I was saying I felt
comfortable in my own skin (I think that's bear thing, don't you?). I think I might even have been suggesting I wanted
to hibernate for a while. Whatever. I
love my bed.
And now to something more serious, which is
still, in a way, between the sheets. The sheets of both a book and a newspaper.
This
morning in the paper I was reading about M.L. Stedman. In case you don’t know, M.L.
Stedman is the author of The Light between
the Oceans, which goodreads.com describes as “a captivating, beautiful, and
stunningly accomplished debut novel – the story of a lighthouse keeper and his
wife who make one devastating choice that forever changes two worlds.”
Stunning cover, by the way.
The
success of The Light between the Oceans
has propelled its little-known author into the spotlight, and the gist of the
words in the paper was that the columnist had got wind of a 2008 anthology of
short fiction published in the UK featuring emerging writers, and three of Stedman’s
short stories. The columnist said that [with the success of the novel], “M.L.
Stedman would probably like to forget her first published stories. However…”
This
suggestion worries me. Why would M.L. Stedman like to forget about these
stories? It seems to me to be a respectable and honourable thing. I mean we’re
talking about being published in an anthology of short fiction with five other
emerging writers, with a launch and readings and champagne (I’m guessing, I
wasn’t there), not about being published in some second rate, little-known,
seedy magazine. Why would this be
something that M.L. Stedman would like to forget about?
All
my stories, everything I’ve ever written, are a part of me, a part of what
makes me the writer I am today. And,
yes, some of them are best not brought to light, they’re certainly not
memorable, but I am not, I repeat not,
and won’t ever be – let’s be clear about this – ashamed of them.
*And
If you’ve read all the way down to here, then I am supposed to remind you to
vote for me in the People’s Choice Awards.
Click on the little shiny blue and yellow badge at the top of the page. Ta and thank
you, and may you be blessed with twins. Not really.
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