On liberation

Freeing ourselves takes time

Getting ready backstage, 2018. Photo credit: Emily Ophidian

Almost two weeks ago I received the first round of edits on my book, which it turns out, exists in the form of a decent, but most definite, first draft. 

I can’t promise this is the last time I’ll draw on the midwife/birth metaphor. This particular phase of the book birthing process was a messy business, which required much hand-holding from my husband in the aftermath. Most of my editor’s feedback made me want to crawl under the nearest duvet. And yet I’m only in the first trimester. Who knew?

Not me. I was secretly hoping, or perhaps more cringingly convinced, that I was almost ready to push this baby out. Tweaks would be all that was needed. I dared to imagine I’d bucked the well-known adage when it comes to writing: there is no such thing as a good first draft.

Countless hours had been poured into getting those sixty thousand words onto the page. I had written (and re-written) carefully chosen scenes, doing my best to make it easy for the reader to make the links between the events described and the bigger points of the piece.

Good memoir is not a blow by blow account of the story of your life. Nobody wants to read what you ate for breakfast last Tuesday. It’s about a universal point, as illustrated by a specific story. Mine is about how nourishing our souls is an inside job, shown through the tale of finding my way back to dance, and eventually stumbling upon Burlesque. It is about my journey from shame to liberation, joyless martyrdom to creative play, imposterdom to self-acceptance.

And it also turns out that this is a journey I am most definitely still on.

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Perhaps I had one of my balding, middle-aged former bosses in my head when I wrote most of the scenes. I don’t remember doing so, but I must have done, because what my editor helped me see, is that my crafting of the current version has been driven by an unconscious desire to not cause offence. My keenness to avoid ramming my opinions down anyone’s throat drips from most paragraphs. I have been so intent on not being judged, or misunderstood, or labelled as an angry feminist or worse, a scantily-clad exhibitionist, that many of the scenes read as flat, and cool and distanced. 

Moments of sheer ecstasy on the stage have been captured with the hollow objectivity of a board paper. It is as if I am reporting on the events whilst wearing a pinstriped suit, with a clipboard in hand, rather than inviting the reader into the crowded dressing room, or under the warmth of the stage lights alongside me.

I have hidden behind detailed commentary on my working life, and skimmed over what could be sizzling scenes of rhinestoned rapture. I have dedicated thousands of words to describing glass-walled conference rooms, and the men who occupied them, and only a handful of sentences to my Burlesque sisters’ sequined costumes caressing their curves, as they descend sweeping staircases of sumptuous cabaret clubs.

I have failed to bring my full self to the page. My joy, my pain, my sensuality, my hope, my longings are described, but not reanimated, through the words I have chosen. I have written about liberating myself from shame, whilst allowing shame to hold me firmly in its grip.

Does this mean I shouldn’t be writing this story? Does it mean the freedom I thought my Burlesque adventures offer is an illusion? Does it mean I am a fraud for wanting to craft this particular tale?

These questions have been pushing me around like a playground bully. What are you doing? they have taunted. How could you have thought you were up to this task?  You are not a writer. You are a cliché for thinking you are.

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After wallowing in that all too familiar pit of creative despair, it was speaking with some of the women in my life that helped me crawl out again.

The first draft, however limp, needed to be written. To sit at my desk and recount the many ways I have been distanced from my own body, and soul, and sense of aliveness - and then capture the ways I have begun to reclaim who I am - has been a beautiful gift to offer myself. The choice to do so was an act of liberation.

Bringing the fullness of who we are requires us to feel safe, and ready. And having others who can be a mirror, and help us see what we cannot yet see ourselves, is an essential part of that process.

Which is no different to the process of creating a soul-nourishing Burlesque act.

The conditioning I have accumulated since my earliest days are layers to be shed gently, and over time, and in my case is best done in the presence of other women.

For me, Burlesque has never been about ‘baring all’ as a route to empowerment. I have heard other performers proclaim, during my earliest days of trying this art form “if I can do that on stage, I can do anything.” For me, that stance would be a route to further trauma and shame, and is what had me shy away from Burlesque, until I found the right teacher.

It is a slow tease. It is not about about ripping my clothes off and shouting ‘ta-da!’ The satin gloves slide off gradually. The stillness between moves is where the power lies. The final reveal is like sinking into a warm bubble bath, rather than bracing for an icy shower.

Liberation involves allowing who we truly are to be seen, first by ourselves, and when we are ready, by others. On our own terms, at our own pace, for reasons that matter to us, and knowing that doing so serves.

That is no easy feat in a world that pushes us around, and tells us who we should be, and what we should do, and how we should look, in all kinds of insidious ways, particularly when we live in a female body.

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Perhaps the ladylike thing for me to say next is that I cannot yet see the writer I can become. But that is not the truth.

Maybe I cannot see her in every moment, but I can see her. As I write this, she is standing right in front of me. She is shimmying her shoulders and smiling, in a gorgeous, strapless, floor-length bedazzled gown.

The loving boot my editor planted on my backside, whilst difficult to recover from, was exactly what I needed, and has revealed a renewed sense of possibility, both for the book I am writing, and for how I want to live.

As I dive deeper, and explore the meaning of what has shaped me in this particular segment of my life, fully, unflinchingly and with a generous dollop of self-compassion, writing the next version of the book will bring me even more alive than I feel today. I can craft a tale that will translate beyond the realm of Burlesque, and offer something valuable to others on their own journeys of liberation.

What I will write next will be the ‘next draft,’ not the ‘final draft.’ There will likely be another rewrite needed. Another layer to be peeled away and gently dropped to the floor. We’ll find out in six months, because that is how long I estimate this next stage will take. I am committed to birthing this book, and it will take time. There is no rush.

With love,

Claire

p.s. Thank you for being here. Do comment/like/share via the buttons at the top of this letter if you feel moved to. I always enjoy hearing what my writing has touched in you.

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