What do you think about when you’re brushing your teeth? I wouldn’t be able to answer that question except that last night, while brushing my teeth, I was wondering: what do people think about when they’re brushing their teeth? So there you go, easy. In the time it took me to go side to side, back and forth, side to side, back and forth, bottom rung, top, bottom rung, top, I wondered how people were split as teeth-brusher-thinkers.
There were those, presumably, who were focused on the action at hand: who considered what state their teeth were in, who perhaps even counted how long they had been brushing, who kept themselves in the moment. A similar category, I figured, took it as practical time. Practical reflection. What did I do today? What will I need to remember to do tomorrow? How (I’m thinking of those brushing at the end of the day, as that was what I was doing at the time and therefore who I was concerned with) will I sleep tonight? For some, it would be a moment not to think at all. For others, I decided, teeth brushing was a fluid moment, with thoughts continuing just as they were before: streaming, splitting, with no relevance to the action in hand.
I have been asked a lot about thinking over the last eight or so months, because my book (no, this wasn’t all a run-up to a book promo, this isn’t a ‘build-up-slowly-gotcha-now-buy-my-book’, although, obviously, buy my book!) is concerned with how we think: it tries, on one level, to make the reader inhabit someone’s head via the page. But (it’s a day in a life, seriously, it’s a lot easier if you read it so you know what I’m talking about here) during the novel, she brushes her teeth twice, and during neither moment, do I give her a thought. I didn’t want her to think! I aimed to capture the integrity of a day, artistically, realistically, but not actually. I’m not sure I’d ever be done if I tried to capture it for real. For each thought is an underthought, for each underthought is a feeling, sensation, unthought thought that is there in its possibility. I wanted to portray those onion layers, but not in its literal multiplicity, because, just as I knew a day would be the max-extent, I knew the full extent of someone’s head would be too much. Besides, what creative worth would there be in a literal imitation? I believed I could get closer to truth and a creative value in not literally imitating. (I still believe that.)
I have been asked a lot about thinking over the last eight or so months (since little scratch came out in the US), and I have said some of this, I have said a lot of not this, but what I have not said, is that over the pandemic, I have become separated from a certain type of thought, and a certain type of thinking. It comes from being contained: small flat, stay inside. It comes from routine being even more repetitive, from not seeing time how I used to. There is a certain type of reflection that I have lost, and I cannot describe it, perhaps precisely because for the moment, I do not have it.
I interviewed a few psychologists for a piece I wrote last year (no, the build-up wasn’t to this either, although, the piece is here) and one of them told me that we are our truest selves, closest to our calmest, healthiest selves, when we are mentally in the present; when we are able to exist close to live, passing time. I nodded, and said, Interesting, but in my head, I thought, surely not? Because that is how I have felt increasingly over the last year: too close to the present. But if I think (think!) about it, what I have felt is not being in the present, but thinking (thinking!) about being in the present. I have been in the present with this sense, as if I were in a room walled with mirrors, of the same thing repeating, again and again and again.
That is a type of looking ahead and back, but without the benefit of reflection, of thinking about actual days and events, instead it is a shallow out-of-the-present, it’s anticipating and acknowledging the repeat.
All this is to say that it has been difficult to find meaning or change mood or stay motivated. I miss spontaneity, mistakes, surprise, feeling in the moment but that moment feeling unfamiliar. (Yes, living in the present). I have missed the present being an interesting place to be. [I am not going to put a disclaimer here that of course I have not had a horrible time, not really, that yes, I have been happy, but I will sneak in a disclaimer through the guise of saying I am not going to put in a disclaimer.]
I don’t know what this newsletter is going to be. Mainly, I want to be able to send out occasional events, good news, maybe an anecdote or two. It probably won’t always start with teeth brushing. It won’t be a think-piece. It will probably end often with saying, did you know I am doing this soon?
For example, did you know I am doing an Arvon live reading on the 21st April online (soon)? It isn’t recorded, and it’s for an hour. I am pretty excited to do this one, because as well as a Q&A it consists of a 15 minute and 5 minute reading. I did the audiobook, but I’ve never done a 10 minute+ reading to an audience. I have a quiet interest in performing little scratch one day. I’m no actor, but I know the patterns of her voice, and I like performing them. Sign up and come laugh at this ludicrous idea.
I have two short stories to share soon, so maybe another newsletter will contain links to those. I’m not going to end by giving the weird opening about toothbrushes meaning, or offering a resolution. It’s my newsletter, I don’t need it to make sense. Talking of which, this newsletter is me typing into the void, and I won’t redraft, rethink, or any other of those things. It’s a thing that gets typed, and that can be read. Thank you if you got this far.
What do you think about when you're brushing your teeth?
Such an interesting exploration of thought! I'm also obsessed by these processes, though haven't thought exactly in this way before (I don't think). I love this piece and the flow of your prose. So reminiscent of 'little scratch' (my favourite book in AGES). Thanks for setting this up! Looking forward to updates. Rosa x
PS I saw that you mentioned on Instagram about potential requests for future posts. I'm interested in how contemporary prose writers utilise poetic technique to push the boundaries of the novel form... and even in this connection between poetry & prose. If you'd be interested in writing about this, I'd love to read!