Writing

SINGULARITY IN WRITING

/ jonathanrobb / 2 Comments

One of the things that fascinates me about the act of writing is how every time I tap at the keyboard I create something that is entirely unique than if I had written it the day before. Let me explain:

When I sit to write I have an idea of what I want to say, what will happen, but the words I use to describe a scene I make up as I go along. The very sentence I just wrote and the one I’m writing now I am piecing together as I feel necessary, like laying tracks in front of the moving toy-train that is the point I’m trying to make. The particular string of words is unformed until the moment I write them. This means that if I was to write a scene today, or delay until tomorrow, the two pieces of writing would be entirely different. Maybe the core of the pieces would mirror one another, but the exact landscape of the words would be unique. The examples I use, the similes, the dialogue, and the descriptions would all depend on the mood I was in while writing, the things I had seen recently that were still fresh in that outermost layer of my consciousness, ready to be taken and applied where appropriate.

Maybe on Day A I saw a client with a tabby cat that lounged at his feet, overweight and unperturbed by the prodding of my client’s toes under the table. Maybe I wasn’t even focused on the cat during the visit, but a small part of my mind noticed and found it amusing, and filed it away. Then when I sat to write later that day, and I want to make the backdrop of a scene more interesting, I add a tabby cat, overweight and lazy.

But say instead I delayed to write the same scene until Day B, but by this point the cat has been forgotten. So to give interest to the environment I include some detail about horrid wallpaper, taken from a memory of wallpaper that used to coat my own bedroom.

Both scenes are painted differently, giving a different flavour depending on what came to mind in the moment of writing. The outset was shared, but simply by where my consciousness was at that point in time, two individual pieces would be created.

I love this principle. I love that no matter what I’m writing it is singular to that day and that environment and that frame of mind. Even the words I just wrote, the use of the word “singular” – perhaps tomorrow if I sat to write this piece the word singular would never appear in my head. The example of the cat may never have occurred to me. Maybe I never would have worked the piece around to detailing an example, instead I could have gotten lost on some tangent, changing the point of the piece altogether.

Why do I love it? Because it means there’s no right way to write a piece. There is no ideal phrasing or perfect sentence; it’s just whatever happens to happen that day. Each patchwork of words is a representation of the specific date and time, and the more diverse because of it.

It also means that the options for creating unique pieces of writing are limitless. Every time I crack open my laptop I am a different person with a different set of thoughts, making each act of creativity a new one.

But what I love most about this theory is that it can be applied to more than just writing. Living each day can be, and is, done in the same fashion. Think about the correlations. Each time you wake you are writing the story of that day. The thoughts you have and the things you say are entirely different from the day before. Now, maybe you’re thinking that your days are repetitive. That each day is not unique. You are wrong.

Even if you leave the house at the same time, arrive at the office at the same time, and head home at the same time, every moment in between is that moment, completely new and original than any other moment in your life. And by realising this you have the ability to write your day any way you like.

You can add excitement to dialogue by saying the joke that comes to mind that your normally keep to yourself. The moment is new; try the joke and see what happens.

You can add new characters by deciding at the start of the day to engage in conversation with that work colleague you don’t really know and have hardly spoken to before. Talk to them, and see where the scene goes.

You can add a tangent in your day by not getting home and falling into the same routine. Go for a walk. Go to the movies. Phone someone you haven’t seen in years. Go swimming. Do anything: the moment is unique, and yours to make of it what you will. There is no wrong way to write it.

And in the same way a writer would write a scene to add excitement, and tension, creative descriptions and intriguing characters, you can write your day in the same way. Don’t just settle for a drab and repetitive diary entry, write your day as if it were a short story you couldn’t put down, filled with plot twists and humour, adventure and reflection.

Each day is a new one, a new collection of words to string together, and an opportunity to write something perfectly singular.

WORK OF A DIFFERENT KIND

/ jonathanrobb / 2 Comments

It was a forty-four degree day, and the fourth in a row, and I was sitting in my car outside the home at two pm, glaring at the sun glaring at me, annoyed that I should be there. Why two pm? I thought, and glared, and stepped from my car into the hammering heat, and sweated as I retrieved my bag from the boot. In and out, I justified to myself, then back to the office and air conditioning – no one should have to work on a day like this.

A young boy answered the door, a grandson I later found out, and let me in, and I noticed straight away with my stiff warm breaths the lack of the house’s air conditioning. He came out, Vince, the husband, holding her hand, Sepharina, the patient, and squinted at me from his tanned face and singlet, off-white, and I told him who I was. The nurse, I said, and his face relaxed, and he smiled with crooked teeth a smile that seemed more genuine because of the imperfection. I shook his hand and he bobbed his head and thanked me, and introduced his wife. Her hand was cold as I clutched it, and limp with uncertainty as she tried to place me, to figure out why I was there and if she should know me. I told her my name and she repeated it softly, and I encouraged her, yes, that’s me.

Vince explained my position, Doctor, he said, and I didn’t disagree because she smiled and I could see a piece slid into place in her head. I sat at the table as Vince eased her into a chair, Small steps, you’re almost there, then sat opposite me, and we both flashed her comforting grins before getting down to business. I told him the hospital had sent me, clarified that she was only home recently? Just today, he said, and the reason for the two pm visit dropped like a coin in my head, and I continued that I was there to help. The relief was apparent in his shadow-sagged eyes as he stated, The hospital is so confusing sometimes, and she asked, Why? and he repeated my words, then patted her hand at the lack of comprehension, and the tension eased from her face – he had it all in place.

Her medications? I asked, How are you coping? He collected her packets and bottles, and opened and closed them, and listed the timing and dosage of each of them, and I realised he knew them better than me. He asked questions, which I answered, about side-effects and tests not done yet, and as we talked I was only vaguely aware of the sweat running down my hair. She picked up a bottle and moved it away and he patted her hand and told her to let it stay, that I might need it, so best if he keep it. She gave a slow nod, and I nodded with her and she smiled to be included in things she didn’t quite follow, but comforted that her husband knew the purpose of the bottle.

I asked about the supports he was receiving, Showering, respite and cleaning? and he thanked me and said, Yes, that he needed them because he was tired, and I sighed and sympathised because I could see the truth of it in the lines of his face. She played with the tablecloth and he reached out a hand without looking, and smoothed the lace back into place.

He was concerned about pads, that he only had three left, and she was prone to accidents, and I explained we’d organise for more, and his frame eased with one less thing to worry about. It was around then that we noticed she was crying, silent sobs from who knows what in the mess of her mind, and he dabbed at her cheeks with a neat handkerchief, and soon the tears were reflected in his eyes. Please don’t cry, he asked and his voice whined, and my heart broke from the shared sadness of a man and his baffled wife.

She quickly forgot what it was and why she was crying, but he held the memory awhile in the heavy breaths of his sighing.

An echo came from behind us in the lounge, a youthful cry, and Vince disappeared while I wrote notes in my file, and returned with a boy, maybe four, with sleepy sweat-streaked hair, and Vince clutched his to his chest and, for the first time, smiled without a care. He told me the boy loved to hug his nonna, and Sepharina grinned, and I knew that at least she understood this one thing, and she hugged the boy, and her joy was breath-taking.

And then we just talked, not about services and pills, but about a man, his life, his wife, and her recent ills, and what that was like. He told me for all his years he’d been a concreter, worked fourteen hour days and stayed away from home to provide for his family, two daughters, one son, but that two years ago he’d decided enough was enough, that he was ready to stop, to clock off, and relax. But that one year in his wife had started seeing things, that she’d forget what she was doing while doing them, that her hands shook, and that he took over her care more and more because she might fall. And he smiled without it showing in his eyes, and said that his retirement wasn’t rest but work of a different kind, because she couldn’t remember whens and wheres, and that he knew life wasn’t fair, but that this wasn’t fair.

He told this to man he’d just met, a man forty minutes ago who’d been more concerned about his own sweat, and I felt small compared to the size of his sacrifice for his wife. What do you say? I told him he was doing an incredible job, and he thanked me and stifled a sob, and I told him how I admired what he did, that not everyone can give something so big, that his wife was lucky in a way, and I hoped it was the right thing to say.

And again, that brief gleam of comprehension lit in her eye, and this time it was her turn to pat his hand and sigh, and say, I have a good husband, my Vince.

The visit was done, and he walked her to the door still holding his grandson, her steps so small and unsure, so they could say their goodbye, and I shook his hand and looked in his eyes and assured him we’d help in what ways we could to ease the work that he now did. A shaky smile lit her face, and I think she was still trying to place me, so I repeated my name and she repeated it with me, and Vince said to say goodbye and so she did, relieved to be told her lines in this bit.

I stepped out into a heat that jellied my knees, and, as the door eased closed behind me with a click, I sighed, looked back, and thought, No one should have to work on a day like this.

A PROSE PERFORMANCE

/ jonathanrobb / 4 Comments

The combination of music and spoken word can be a powerful thing, as I was reminded when listening to a poetry performance by Shane Koyczan. The ability of the music to add weight to words, to add texture and ambience and scope, allows the recital to become something bigger than just speech, and falls into the category of performance.

With musical accompaniment words seem to resonate with meaning, the melody acting almost as an instrumental highlighter, drawing our ear to the powerful key phrases and stamping the evocative images into our brains. Music stirs something in us on a visceral level that words alone can’t always accomplish. It pierces deeper than the surface intellectual appreciation of the words we’re hearing and makes us feel them.

For this post I’ve taken a previous post, Whatever Helps You Sleep, and recorded it as a performance with my guitar playing to support it. Some may say using a previous post is cheating, but I say it’s my creative brain adapting it. It’s a loophole.

Listen below:

The video that inspired my own performance can be seen underneath. It’s also well worth checking out Shane’s video titled “To This Day” which can be found here.

PROSTATES AND EMPATHY

/ jonathanrobb / 4 Comments

I’ve wanted to tell this story for a long time, but it took me a while to figure out how best to tell it. It’s about a man I met during a nursing placement in my second year of university. I tried writing it as a short story but it felt flat. Then I tried writing it as a verse poem, but quickly discovered it would be the longest verse poem in history, and who has the patience to read a painfully long verse poem?

But I think I’ve figured out the underlying problem: I was telling the story from my patient’s perspective. I thought this would bring some immediacy to the tale, but I’ve decided the power of the story isn’t from showing the elderly patient’s point of view, it’s from showing a young naive nursing student’s. In this case, being an observer is what gives the story its guts.

So now, I’m just going to tell it:

 

The placement was my second effort at actually entering a nursing environment and getting my hands dirty, literally, and my first within a hospital. Before this I had spent two weeks in a nursing home during my first year, and, while shockingly confronting, there was no real acuity to the experience. The patients weren’t patients, they were residents, and the job was to maintain their comfort. This was a real hospital. Looking back, it’s almost laughable; the hospital was the tiny rural hospital of Leongatha, which has a total of twenty-eight beds. A single ward of a metropolitan hospital has more beds than that. But, for me, it was a real hospital, and I felt hopelessly inept within its walls.

I met Ron on my third day. He was in his seventies, a local, and had been admitted because he couldn’t empty his bladder. Or, to be technical, he had benign prostatic hyperplasia. Basically, for whatever strange hormonal reason, when men get over the age of fifty it’s not uncommon for their prostate gland to begin growing. The trouble with this is the prostate wraps around the urethra, the tube through which urine is drained, and a growing prostate literally chokes the urethra. This results in an almost perpetually full bladder. Not a good thing.

I’ve wondered what Ron saw when he first met me. Meeting Ron, I saw a silver-haired old man with smile lines on his face and an ease I immediately admired. He was a person comfortable in any situation because he was comfortable in his own skin. He knew himself and liked what he found. I think, upon meeting me, he must have seen the opposite: an awkward young man unsure of himself and his place within the hospital.

 

The compact nature of the Leongatha hospital meant not only did I get to care for Ron both pre and post his operation, but I also had the opportunity to be there with him during the actual procedure. The operating room was ten meters away from the ward.

I remember stepping back from Ron’s trolley where we had stopped outside the operating room’s double doors to give space for his wife to say goodbye. It felt too formal, that moment, a pause for the wife to say words of sentiment. I both liked the official nature of the final farewell and found it slightly ridiculous, with the staff standing watch like respectful morticians. Ron wasn’t going in for heart surgery, and while there can be complications, death was a very far off possibility. Ron also saw the humour in the moment and joked while his wife attempted to be sincere. She eventually rolled her eyes and laughed him off, telling him to behave with the nursing staff. He threw me a wink as he promised he would.

We went through the double doors, his wife now marooned on the other side, and I waited with Ron while final preparations were made to the operating room. I wanted to keep Ron company, but I also had no idea where I was meant to stand, and beside the patient’s trolley seemed like the most appropriate place. Ron chatted with me while he lay, and I stood, in the cold hallway, and on reflection I realised he did this as much to keep me distracted as himself. Any nerves either one of us felt were diluted with conversation. It didn’t take Ron long to break his promise and give incorrect answers when asked by the surgical staff to repeat his name and date of birth. He found claiming to be twenty-six vastly amusing, and had a way of laughing that made it impossible not to laugh along with him.

 

One of the starkest images I have from that operation was before it had even commenced: seeing Ron have his epidural inserted. The operation Ron had is called a TURP, or a transurethral resection of the prostate, and it is done with the patient fully conscious. The epidural numbed Ron from the waist down. To have the needle inserted the patient sits on the edge of the operating table, curled forward, while the anaesthesiologist counts vertebrae and inserts a sharp splinter of metal into the spine. Given the delicate nature of such a procedure the patient must stay as still as possible, which means they can’t talk.

Seeing Ron topless and hunched forward, his face devoid of the usual animation talking gave it, made him seem so much older than he had before, as if he was now just another patient, a frail and scared man. He looked vulnerable, and it made me admire the strength with which he held himself the rest of the time to hide this fact.

My other vivid memory of the surgery was the smell. A TURP is done by inserting a long tube up the penis to where the prostate sits around the urethra, where the blockage is. The tube does two things: it constantly floods the bladder with fluid that drains away down a separate lumen, taking with it the blood from the soon-to-be bleeding prostate, as well as being tipped with a small metal loop that, when electrified, becomes instantly white-hot. The loop is what does the carving. The surgeon sends pulses of electricity into the metal and then scraps it along the inside of the prostate where it is growing into the urethra, burning away strips of gland. Think coring an apple from the inside.

The smell I smelt was cooking flesh. As the loop fried the prostate the smell of it drifted around the room, the smell of a steak in a frypan. It was made worse by the fact that it wasn’t instantly offensive, only when you realised what it was you were smelling. Ron, of course, was unperturbed by his own cooking prostate and found plenty of humour in the situation, joking about what a fine chef the surgeon was.

 

The climax of Ron’s tale, and moment that awed me and made Ron unforgettable even after five years of patients, came on the day after his surgery. He was back on the ward, only his bladder still wasn’t emptying.

After a TURP, an irrigation system is set up so that fluid constantly runs through a catheter into the patient’s bladder and out again into a giant catheter bag that sits beside the bed. The prostate is a highly vascularised gland, and, even with the cauterising effect of the searing hot loop, still bleeds profusely after the surgery. The fluid goes into the catheter clear but drains away a deep red. The liquid lightens as the bleeding slows and eventually stops and this is when the hospital staff know it’s safe to cease the irrigation.

The risk? Clots. Blood pooling in the bladder and urethra is a bad idea on the best of days, but the real risk comes when the blood congeals and becomes a plug, effectively creating the same outcome as a urethral-choking prostate. Unfortunately for Ron, despite the irrigation, clots had still formed and blocked his catheter.

This was the scene: Ron sat reclined on his bed, legs spread and his gown flicked back over his stomach. Two doctors crouched between his open limbs, working with the catheter inserted up his penis. Blood and saline soaked the beds sheets as the doctors took a large syringe and squirted further fluid up Ron’s catheter.

The idea is to create turbidity within the catheter and bladder by quickly shooting liquid up the tube, thereby dislodging any clots. The doctors then draw back on the syringe and hope to suck the catheter-plugging clots out of the bladder.

The problem was the clot stopping Ron from being able to drain had wedged itself in the lumen that took fluid away from the bladder. This meant the doctors could squirt saline up but not drag it down. Ron’s bladder was already full from the irrigation and the pressure was only getting worse. Imagine that moment when you have held off from going to the toilet for too long, the worst incidence in your life, maybe a car trip, or a meeting, when your whole lower abdomen is cramping and you’re bitting your lip to stop from whimpering in pain. When it feels like something might literally rupture inside you. Now multiple it tenfold. Every time the plunger of the syringe went down Ron fought to stop his body from buckling in agony.

So there’s the scene – Ron in torment as his already overfull bladder gets another shot of fluid that has no way of coming out, blood staining the sheets from previous attempted recatheterisations, and all dignity discarded in the heat of the acute situation. Even with his gown covering his top half, Ron was as exposed as a human can get.

This is when his granddaughter chose the unfortunate timing to visit, and to make matters worse, with a new boyfriend in tow.

Naturally the nursing staff intercepted Ron’s granddaughter on the other side of the curtains and explained the situation, suggesting she wait or come back another time. Ron, however, found the idea of his family coming to visit and his failure to welcome them rude, and so insisted they come in. His granddaughter took a chair beside Ron’s head and held his hand, and Ron joked that he never did anything the easy way. The boyfriend, as unsure of his place as I was, and visible overwhelmed by the intensity and intimacy of the situation, stood to the side of the room, his face a beacon of the fear I was hopefully hiding with my professional demeanour.

I can still remember the exact moment when Ron’s gaze lifted and he saw the young man well and truly past his comfort zone. A shudder racked Ron’s frame and I watched as he bit down his pain, forced his face to relax into a smile, and asked the young man how he was going.

He was fighting down agony, blood spilling from his penis, and he cared enough to reach out and attempt to comfort the stranger who had intruded on this mortifying moment. He had seen a person in distress and acted. I’m sure it was that simple to Ron, regardless of his own torture at the time. He was just that kind of man.

 

The last memory I have of Ron is as I was leaving, having finished my final shift at that strange and small hospital of Leongatha. We had shaken hands, he had wished me luck, and thanked me for my help. I can’t remember if I thanked him, but I hope I did. If I was back there again I would remark on what an incredible human being he is. I would tell him I admire his strength, and his consideration, and thank him for teaching me an important lesson about empathy, and humour. The final image I have as I left that ward was seeing Ron, the ringleader amongst four other men his age, all having had a TURP, holding up his catheter bag and remarking on the lovely pink colour of his handbag. The men all chortled and displayed their respective bags, commenting on the various shades of red they each had.

He had turned something as embarrassing and awkward as a blood and urine filled catheter bag into a joke they could all join in on, and I think that one example is enough to show why Ron’s is a story worth telling.

THE FOURTH CORNER

/ jonathanrobb / 3 Comments

Monday found me sitting in a classroom at RMIT University for the second week of an eight week screenwriting course I’m attending with my brother and cousin. The topic was character.

Our teacher sought to have us delve into what made the central character of our television shows tick, and he went about it through activities designed to reveal every facet of our characters. We began with how our character would come off in public, the face they showed the world and how they were perceived. This was the mask they wore, the version they thought socially acceptable, and one designed to gloss over the darker parts of themselves. Or, as our teacher put, “What they use to hide the fucked up parts.” I like his phrasing better. It feels more honest.

This led to examining the parts they hide, the weaknesses and flaws they’re aware of and deliberately conceal. Their self under the mask.

Which led to the parts they think they hide, but what is in fact readily apparent to anyone who has known them longer than an hour. Example: Maybe they’re terrified when it comes to talking to the opposite sex, and attempt to hide this fear by talking loudly and endlessly when engaging with someone of a different gender. Said opposite gender would see their insecurity immediately while our main character feels cocky in their seamless concealment of their inner demon.

Lastly we analysed the attributes our character had that no one knew existed, excluding the god-like figure of the writer, of course. The latent characteristics that would boil to the surface given the right circumstances. Admirable or amoral.

As we worked through the layers of our character I found myself inevitably turning the magnifying glass around and seeing myself as a character. What was my mask? What did I hide? What did I hide poorly? And what potential, good or bad, lurked within me? The process felt like an unveiling, a therapy session exploring who I really am under the bluster and bravado I put up to get through another day.

The next activity looked at the four corners of a character. Picture a square. Each corner of that square represents an attribute of our character. Three of those corners can represent a positive facet of our character. Maybe they’re friendly, honest, and hard-working. A nice character, certainly, but, when boiled down, a boring one. Our teacher was keen to stress that this character, in their current state, bred no stories. This character was unrealistic.

Enter the fourth corner. The final corner had to represent a negative trait in our character. Maybe jealousy. Maybe selfishness. Maybe our character is friendly, honest, and hard-working, but underneath it is a fear that they can never be enough. This is a three-dimensional character. This character has stories to tell.

Again the process of self-reflection was inevitable. I sat and wondered what my fourth corner was, and it solidified when our teacher described the fourth corner as being “the thing that fucks things up when you’re doing well. The root of every time you felt you failed, and the trait overcame every time you felt you succeeded.” A fatal flaw.

I knew it then. For me, it’s fear of risk. Fear of looking stupid, fear of failing, fear of injury, fear of limiting options, fear of consequences, fear of not coming back. When summarised: fear of risk.

Every time I didn’t say something when I wanted to, every time I didn’t act when I should have, every time I looked back and felt that squirm of discomfort and embarrassment about something from my past was because I was too afraid to behave how a better part of me thought I should. I had weighed the risk and my resolve crumbled and I did nothing. It’s insecurity, and I hide it with a mask of confidence.

And every time I felt I succeeded? When I knew the risk but did it anyway. Asked the question and risked looking stupid. Said the words that needed to be aired. Acted without sure footing underneath. For me, my nursing career is an accomplishment because delving into the intimate and confronting aspects of health, death, and humanity is something I wanted to run away from a hundred times. I saw the reality and shrank from it. But I didn’t run, instead I waded into the risk-filled arena and made my peace with it.

It would be impolite of me to ask what your fourth corner is, but I going to ask anyway.

What is it?

Don’t tell me, but think about and see if you can find the answer for yourself. Dip down into that part of your brain where you hide hard truths and force yourself to look at it. Don’t act on it straight away. This isn’t an exercise in changing yourself. Just identify it and sit with it a bit. Get used to knowing this part of you. Make your peace with it.

And know that it isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing, and something that makes you three-dimensional. Something that makes you human.

Something that makes your story worth telling.