Although many books reveal themselves when the writer is alone, what is sometimes considered to be a lonely profession also leads to some of the most meaningful connections in life. I’m not sure I believe in manifestation, but it is true that I write to change my life and that is exactly what has happened.
This week my mum came up to Northumberland and looked after my daughters for 48 hours so I could do a book event at the beautiful Highland Bookshop in Fort William. Adventures like this are rare and difficult to organise, but almost without exception they are always worth the huge effort involved.
Recently I got a new car. Well it’s not a new car, and I didn't really buy it. It is second-hand and I have to lease it, but my name is on the lease so it feels like mine. I still get a thrill from doing things on my own, without a Mrs in front of the Caro, as if I’m finally becoming a grown-up. The car I used to have was an old banger - the kids called it ‘The Space Wagon’, because the handbrake was huge and it looked like something out of Star Wars. The Space Wagon struggled to get above 60mph and juddered alarmingly when I changed gear. It was ok going down hill, but I had to take most up-hills in first or second gear, telling the children to breathe in and make themselves as small as possible so we could safely reach the top. Beyond the fear that I might break down (a fear that was realised several times), the old banger made me feel trapped and shrunk my world. I hated that car, but I had to get rid of my old leased car in order to afford our recent house move, and this was the first car that looked like it might do the job. Reader, it didn’t.
I’ve realised it is important to me to feel that I can run away immediately if I ever want or need to. This is probably a stress response to years of being unable to easily leave my house. In reality, of course, I can’t just drop everything and drive for the hills, but I like to believe I could if the opportunity arose. Over the years that we have been a tribe of five, the kids and I have been on numerous road trips, and the old banger was putting that at risk. I sold it for much less than I had paid for it seven months previously and succumbed to the monthly repayments on a boring but reliable Mum Car. We need to be able to escape and breathe in new air if the mood takes us. I read the passage from Twelve Moons about our adventure to Achmelvich in the far north-west of Scotland at my event this week in Fort William - about the new people we met and the way that holiday reinforced my reality as a woman living on the edge. Connection and isolation seem to be the threads running throughout my life.
On days that are bookended by meltdowns, when the children are reluctant to leave the house, it’s important for me to dream of adventure. This week I escaped north towards mountains, deep conversations and huge skies, and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t written a book about dreaming of a bigger world.
has written on Substack recently about how landscapes and cityscapes help her to process feelings. As she embraces a new life in Washington, she reflects upon how different it is from her previous life in rural Oxfordshire. You can read her essay here. This week I took the reverse journey, driving 100 miles past the vast, quiet beaches of the east coast and across to Glasgow, feeling invisible and delighted as I walked new streets. It’s a form of reinvention for me, disappearing into new places in a little dress and sunglasses that I’d rarely wear on the beaches or in my tiny market town.When I arrived, I hopped on and off a bus to the city centre and clung to an umbrella being blown inside out, the hems of my jeans dipping into puddles. I sat in a bar with my oldest friend for an hour and fell straight back into the conversation we had last time we met. Life felt easy and familiar and I felt the mother slipping into the background. Then onto a meal with some new friends, and conversations about books and Britpop, accompanied by laughter and baklava.
At the Kelvingrove Museum & Gallery on Thursday I snapped women’s faces staring out at me from frames, studied their emotions and thought about how I try to translate those emotions into words. I find that being surrounded by visual art takes me into my head: I become more ‘thinky’ and introspective and discover new ways to explore the human condition.
In the car I’d been listening to Laura Cumming’s latest book, Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death, in which she weaves her love of visual art, especially the Dutch Golden Age, through her own life and that of her father. I stood still, my throat tight with tears, in front of images of women from long ago, wondering about the stories they might have told, searching for clues amongst the clumps of oil paint. I write again and again about writing myself back onto the page, trying to understand why I felt that I disappeared for a long time, or maybe lost myself - immersing myself in art always makes me feel less alone, places my life into a bigger context. In the same way that running on the beach or rolling in the waves makes me feel insignificant in a really good way - because I am so tiny and the world is so huge - these encounters with art remind me how connected I am to the women who have trodden paths before me.
Later that day I drove out of Glasgow, along the edge of Loch Lomond and up into the Scottish Highlands. Glencoe was brooding and stole my breath more than once. On to Fort William, and a room full of strangers sharing stories with me. An 80-year old man spoke to me at length about love. A parent-carer told me about her own fight to be heard. A woman bought a copy of my book for her daughter, another single mother with four children who is also chasing the magic. And then home in the darkness, past a deer whose eyes flashed in the headlamps.
Someone might read about this escapade and wonder if it was worth it. Think that ten hours in the car and the organisational challenge was too much. And it was a lot. But the recompense was huge. The friendship, the views, the art, the conversation, the connection - I will hold it inside me for a long time and it will sustain me.
This is how I make my life bigger.
YES, Caro. I can feel your shoulders dropping in this post. And the ten hours in a car are SO worth it and are absolute BLISS when you're travelling a road of your own choosing. Gorgeous photo too, and so sad that we had swapped coasts for the week and missed our chance. Next time, friend. Next time. x
Ooh this sounds gorgeous. I was so with you in that car. And I’d like to listen to Thunderclap too. Lovely piece