The Princess And The Pea

On a multi-layered life

It occurred to me this morning that I spend my life layering versions of myself like the mattresses in The Princess And The Pea. What is it, I wondered, that keeps me shifting from one side of the bed to another, that forces me awake?

I could define it as a desire to write, but that still requires further interrogation. The desire to write stems from a need to make sense of the world around me and understand myself. Additionally, I write in order to connect with others and make my world bigger. All these ideas are contained inside the tiny pea that makes me restless, so what do the mattresses represent?

This morning my writing has been sandwiched in between all of the domestic acts you can expect a single mother of four to carry out: making breakfast, preparing a packed lunch, looking for lost trainers, driving to the bus stop, unstacking the dishwasher, feeding the cat, stacking the dishwasher, washing up some pans, helping the youngest with her maths, sending an email about the EHCP tribunal, cleaning the bathroom sink…and on and on. So many mattresses…

While I do all of those fairly mindless jobs - like a robot, muscle memory kicking in with every monotonous task - my mind is like the princess on her enormous pile of mattresses. It is twisting, turning and agitating, trying to find solutions to the pea in my life that is forced to stay hidden at the very bottom of the pile.

I wrote about this in Twelve Moons, the way creativity can thrive amongst huge domestic loads. That’s not to say that it’s an ideal way to create, just that I believe that my creativity is fuelled by the claustrophobia I sometimes experience as a full time carer. If I had written a bestseller and been offered a Netflix deal, if money was no object, I am sure I’d still create, but I’d be inspired by something quite different.

I also write a lot about seeking magic in the mundane. It would be easy to feel squashed down completely by the challenges I face - no funded education and inadequate health support for my children, lack of opportunity to work and earn more, an occasional sense of isolation - but leaning into that through various creative practices makes it bearable. More than that, it gives my life beyond caring and mothering another sense of purpose, allows me to hope that I can effect small societal changes through my work and, perhaps most importantly, it enables me to connect with other humans. The power of the stories we share.

So like the fairytale, do not underestimate the power of that single, tiny pea. Allow yourself to sit with the discomfort, the frustration and the insomnia and use it to your creative advantage. And remember - sleep is over-rated.