Dalloway Day

I stepped out of my usual pattern tonight: I bravely went to a book discussion on Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway', ostensibly because this week is 100 years since the setting of the story, but more realistically because someone I trust invited me to try Something New.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." (Virginia Woolf, a century before Miley Cyrus)

The setting: a bookshop/ lounge/ lecture space in damp mid-winter Adelaide, bursting with academic knowledge of those who have been chewing on this book for decades, yet which I have barely licked. (I only tried it so I would know what everyone was talking about.) There was an electric fire, and cheese, and parsley tea. (Maybe next time.)

The discussion topic: A novel that dives deep through internal monologues and stream of consciousness, thereby breaking dozens of novel writing rules. An author who didn't need to make a living from her writing because she had an inheritance. An author who doubted the value of her work with the same doubts of all writers, and yet felt the very great drive to do it, unveiling and critiquing some of the most important issues of existence.

The story: London, mid June 1923. A time after a war, after a pandemic, in a world fatigued from sadness, where 50 year old women have to find their purpose anew, or accept their invisibility (among many, many other relatable topics).

My self: I went prepared to feel small, uneducated, somehow having missed both the opportunity and discipline of a classical education. I expected to be reminded that my writing craft is hokey, shallow, untested and started too late in life. I was sure someone was going to talk to me during intermission - if not in the middle of a lecture - and point out that I did not belong.

Instead the speakers were generous, and the bookshop shelves were kind, friendly, lined with works by 20th & 21st century females, some of whom I had actually read and loved. I was greatly encouraged, and even felt welcomed, by some of the pieces on display. The shelves hugged not just the elite ones, not just the ones attracting academic rumination. I began to imagine it attainable to one day see my name up there. I might not share a space with Virginia Woolf but there might be a spot between Philippa Gregory and Georgette Heyer, if Tamara Harpford might put some flesh on the bones of her dreams.

Final big think: I'm grateful for the Something New, and the effective kick in the pants, particularly when the world feels a little fatigued from sadness and when dreams are gritty with dust. I'm grateful for my education which was substantially at the knees of two strong, smart women who were only babies one hundred years ago (and had their own babies after the weariness of another war). I'm grateful for those kind bookshelves, and to notice that my life at 50 is nowhere near as shuttered as that of Clarissa Dalloway.

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/pink-petaled-flowers-_C9XM02Y5ZE