How (not) to deal with the news

With wise words taken from Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb

Thinking

I have always been scared of everything the news but I have worked hard for the last 23 years to protect my son from my neurosis, not wanting him to pick up on my fear of the world. It has not worked. He knows I am full of fear but amazingly (and probably thanks to his father) he remains calm and strong. He’s rational and smart and wise and has an open and inquiring mind that helps him to see reason.*

The other day we were sitting and chatting when the TV news came on, he saw my reaction and suggested we put it off. As I said, protecting him from my neurosis has not worked. As I also said he is kind and thoughtful and doesn’t want me to be distressed.

I tried to talk my fear away, maturely talking about the value of news while he adopted a look that said ‘sweet of you to try and pretend you’re someone else.’ I searched for wise words of wisdom and perspective but I had none, until the next day when I stole them from Leigh Sales.  Leigh was being interviewed on The Newsmakers (part of The Squiz) and she explained the value of news so well that I transcribed it so I could pop it into conversation the next day. (I could not find a natural way to pop it into conversation so I sent it in a text instead**)

‘The nature of the news’ Leigh says,  ‘is it is  going to emphasis the least likely thing to happen to you. For example when I was at university we were taught 100 helicopters might fly safely today but the one that crashes is the one that is going to make the news. We emphasise the aberration not the most likely thing to happen.  It’s important we do that because there might be a reason that helicopter crashed that could point to a problem that could result in more helicopter crashes that we want to avoid.’

The explanation was so simple and so logical, I felt like I could maybe try and understand the news through a different lens. A less scary one. ‘We emphasise the aberration not the most likely thing to happen’. It’s still devastating for the people it’s happening to but the perspective makes me feel I may be able to watch (some) news without appearing terrified to my son.

*I am not at all biased - this is an honest review of my son. By his mother. But still.

** He probably didn’t even read the text because he’s not scared of the news and didn’t need to be reassured. But hey look at me (and Leigh Sales) parenting myself.

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It is a week of intense feeling and I don’t feel brave/knowledgable/articulate or eloquent enough to  to talk about it - but I hope you take the time to read this piece from Annabel Crabb published on ABC News. If you don’t have time to read the whole piece - read at least this extract she posted on her Instagram.

Reading

I’m not sure where I heard about this book because I have not seen it on the shelves, but I wrote it down at some point and now I wish I had written down who recommended it because I want to read everything else they recommend.

Evenings and Weekends is written by Oisín McKenna and I have to admit having something for Irish writers, I seem to love every one of them. But I am quick to judge names and covers and just assumed that the writer was a woman until I went to follow him on Instagram. And I think that’s perhaps one of the most important messages of the book - gender is not the point.

The book is described as a “tender portrait of contemporary queer life” of thirty-something Londoners and I am quite sure that Oisin did not have a long-married, heterosexual, suburban 56-year old woman in mind when he wrote it. But I want to scream from the rooftops that even if you are not 30 years old, you are very secure in your gender identity and you don’t question your sexuality at all - you will still love this book. 

It is beautifully written, I underlined entire swathes of it to come back and reread and try memorise. In fact the one line I loved so much marries beautifully with the piece by Annabel Crabb that I urged you to read before. McKenna writes “it’s possible to support a political cause without your every emotional, sexual and psychological drive aligning precisely with the principles of that cause. Perhaps it’s more than possible, perhaps it’s typical.”

But don’t let that line cloud what the book is really about, and that is relationships. Between friends, lovers, parents, enemies, people at work, people who you went to school with, the people who live next door to you. It is about people trying to find their place in community, about support and love and settling down and not settling at all. It is young and refreshing and beautiful and very worthy of a read.

Eating

Back to the real world this week and no more fancy European tapas bars for me, just my kitchen in Coogee. Made and fell in love with this eggplant dip (I also added some chilli honey to the finished product). The recipe said to cook the eggplant in the oven face down and even though I thought I knew better, I followed the recipe and what do you know - the eggplant was golden and caramel-y and a food blogger would have taken a picture of it.

I have also been on an Adam Liaw streak and made his Ssamjang chicken for the meat eaters in the house. They loved it so much, I had to make a meat-free dish that I could also enjoy. I went for Midnight Spaghetti and it was quick, easy and TASTY.  Both recipes come from this book.

Thanks again for reading - don’t forget to hit the like button, if indeed you liked any part of this.

See you next week.

Lana