The Sarah effect

The shocking murder of Sarah Everard has unleashed a torrent of emotion around male harassment of women. Abductions of young women are tragic but thankfully rare - I reminded my teenage daughter of this when she told me a friend was worrying about walking into town. However, the case has shone a light on the commonplace fears that many women experience throughout their daily lives. 

Darkness and light:
In memory of Sarah Everard ❤️

For the most part, these fears have become normalised: don't walk down a dark alley, spike keys through your fingers for protection, be ready to press the alarm on your phone, walk confidently, send texts to make loved ones aware of your whereabouts, etc. 

It's just common sense, right? Or have we learnt to subjugate ourselves to the threat of violence?

Screen life: the films I've loved

Today I'm sitting at my computer in three jumpers, looking through the window at snowflakes swirling around the garden. As ever, I'm peering through a screen at the real world beyond. The pandemic has turned us into a nation of voyeurs, gleaning our entertainment from Zoom, television, mobile phones... and now windows.

Living in a bubble

Not that I'm complaining. I've had my fresh air this morning and it's chilly enough in the house, let alone outside. I'm also quite a fan of Zoom and its ilk. Without video conferencing, I wouldn't be able to read Jacqueline Wilson to my nieces, catch up with family/friends, watch live theatre, enjoy Arts Society talks or take part in an upcoming Chinese New Year quiz this weekend. This is life in 2021.

Photos from home

I'm in a retrospective mood. December is a month for sorting through our photos and thinking about the year that has passed. It's no surprise the events of 2020 will stand out in my memory. A few years ago it was a road-trip through California that dominated; this year our holidays were equally unusual but somewhat closer to home (literally).

Holidays in the garden

Scrolling through our archive, the photos reveal a few other themes too: fun in the garden during lockdown-lite (summer), new crazes for paddle boarding and home-decorating, as well as an obsession with food (homegrown veg, homemade sourdough, celebratory cakes). Towards the latter end of the year, it was the new kitten who stole the show - romping with the dog, curled up in my son's hat, or perched nonchalantly on the roof of our house (three storeys up 😩).

Different minds

My husband and I were playing a fun game the other day. He would point to random objects in the house and I had to say where they came from. For example, he picked up the juice squeezer and I responded, "Engagement present from Cathy and John." 

Testing times:
Who gave us the juicer?

This went on for a while, eliciting gasps of admiration from him every time I nailed the answer. He eventually caught me out on the toaster (I couldn't recall where we got it or what the old one looked like). "I can't believe you can remember all this stuff," he said. This is from a man who spends on average five minutes a day looking for his keys/phone/work pass. 

A quick guide to happiness (sort of)

Whenever I succumb to a bit of navel-gazing, the subject is always the same. How to be happy. You'd have thought I'd got it sussed by now, but there is a wildcard element in all of this that makes 'being content' a slippery fish to pin down. Only now, with the experience of middle age, am I beginning to understand what makes my chemistry hum.

Time is elastic: re-schedule the chores!

My own compass of wellbeing swings between different points - family life in the north, perhaps, and working achievements in the south. I have long given up on my BIG career, preferring these days to plug the gap with novel-writing, blogging and freelance work. In effect, I have traded ambition for freedom and being at home with the kids.

Drama in the night

Hermaphrodite Mum
Three kids and a single mum

"Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!" was King Lear's famed reaction to the storm. "Where the hell are my children?" was mine last week as I lay in bed listening to rolls of thunder shake our house to its very foundations. 

Where are the kids?
© Jaroslav Noska | Dreamstime.com

Normally, a rollicking, good thunderstorm never fails to bring all three children running into my bedroom like rats deserting a sinking ship, but last week as the storm bellowed outside my open window, there was no sign of them. My first thought was: Oh well, I'll just go back to sleep! But then I started to panic. What if Walking Toddler was a gibbering wreck, too frightened even to call out my name? What if one of them has been struck by lightening unbeknownst to me?

The Puppet Master: a taster

Available on Amazon 6/6/16

On Monday the 6 June, my latest novel, The Puppet Master, will be published on Kindle. It tells the story of a diplomat's wife living in the social whirl of expat Jakarta during the 1970s. She has two young daughters she adores, a successful husband and an exotic home complete with staff, so why does she view the future with a sense of foreboding?

As promised in my blog last week about my childhood in Indonesia, I am posting part of the opening chapter to whet your appetites. Make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy...

Tales from the tropics

One of my earliest memories is playing happily in a friend's garden before being unceremoniously yanked inside by our panic-stricken mothers. Turned out there was a python lurking in the storm drain. Not long after the snake-scare, we were motoring through town when our driver yelled at us to duck down out-of-sight. Our error was to pass a roundabout where police were pursuing a runaway man with live bullets. I can remember seeing the man fall to the ground as my mum pushed me down into the footwell. Strangely I accepted these occasional elements of danger without question. That was how life was in Indonesia in the late 1970s.

Me and my brother in the Puncak, outside Jakarta, c.1978

It was a lot of fun too - lazy afternoons at the swimming pool, horse-riding in the tea plantations outside Jakarta, holidays in Bali and trips to the beach with the volcano Krakatoa looming in the background. My parents were posted to Jakarta in their early thirties and were given a company bungalow complete with domestic staff. Looking back at family photos, it is clear that hedonism was the order of the day. My parents and their friends were young and groovy - the albums are full of raucous parties, boat trips and batik shirts. 

At the zoo

Hermaphrodite Mum
Three kids and a single mum

The children came back from their dad's place this weekend full of the joys of spring. As I got supper ready, I listened stoically to their excited tales about going to the Land of the Lions at London Zoo. Apparently one of the male lions came right up to the glass partition and looked like he wanted to gobble up Walking Toddler! Imagine that? What fun! Oh, and Daddy managed to film it all on his iPhone. Wonderful. I can see it now: YouTube sensation as toddler becomes lion fodder at London Zoo. 

Walking Toddler as lion fodder!

Seriously though - I am glad we have reached a point in our lives where our kids are happy to spend time with either parent. Ex-husband and I can pat each other on the back for being civilised grown-ups and managing our divorce in a mature manner...

Christmas unwrapped

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine... Late nights, too many presents to buy/wrap and overdoses of vitamin C to keep the winter bugs at bay. Every year, it's customary for me to have a little moan to my husband about how overworked I am. It's all part of the tradition, along with mince pies and decorating the tree.

The presents are piling up

I often struggle in the build-up to Christmas, particularly as I am not religious. Undoubtedly there is vicarious pleasure in watching my children enjoy the magic of Father Christmas, but even my youngest is beginning to have doubts (despite his fervent desire to believe). When I let slip the other night that I sometimes gave Father Christmas a helping hand, he declared passionately, "Please tell me you are not Santa, Mummy!" 

So if you take away the religion and the myth-making, it seems that all you are left with is a marathon of present-buying and no where to park in town because we've all decided to go shopping on the same day. 

Social butterflies

Hermaphrodite Mum
Three kids and a single mum

If I could bestow a single gift upon my children, it would be social confidence. Already I can see that my eldest is struggling to make her mark on the world, preferring to hide away in the corner rather than attract undue attention to herself. When I picked her up from dance club after school the other day, she was standing on her own while the rest of the girls chatted away to each other. "I just don't fit in!" Quiet One snapped at me when I committed the error of asking if she had made any new friends. 

Parties: back in seek-a-snog mode

I was similar at her age, or certainly during those precarious teenage years when you would rather die than cause a fuss or go out on a limb. My best friend at school was much more gregarious than me and at parties I used to drift along in her slipstream. She would launch into a group of people like the Titanic on her maiden voyage, holding forth on any subject, while I threw in the odd laconic comment. Fortunately parties in those days were simple affairs. A little flirtatious chat and a lot of cider were just a prelude to a snog in some dark corner of the room.

The whips and scorns of time

I finally worked out who Bradley Cooper was the other day. Yes, I know - I have been living under a rock. Last Saturday, my husband and I watched him and Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, a quirky rom-com about two young people with mental health issues who [spoiler alert] end up falling in love. The message we took away was that most of us harbour a little craziness, whether we paddle away mid-stream or occasionally sink beneath the flow.

"The world will break your heart ten ways to Sunday - that's guaranteed," Pat (Bradley Cooper) told us in the final scene. "I can't begin to explain that. Or the craziness inside myself and everyone else. But guess what? Sunday's my favourite day again."

"The world will break your heart ten ways to Sunday..."

Credit: Will Lam

Oddly, I found this quotation comforting. We are not alone, I thought! The idea that life is about heartbreak and disappointment, as much as fulfilment and pleasure, is not a novel one but it teaches us that we can't always expect an easy ride. We have to embrace human experience in its entirety, the rough with the smooth. 

Psyching up for 2013

Another new year. Time to ring in the changes. January is a month of resolutions, stodgy thighs and enforced abstinence. We leave the excesses of Christmas behind and move into a new phase of betterment. For goodness' sake, why?

Not for me, thanks!
© Photographer: Milogu | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Facebook is full of miserable people bemoaning their decision to give up alcohol this month. Why do we impose these rules on ourselves? Lose half a stone. Go to the gym more. Learn a new language. Be nicer to the children / husband / mother / mother-in-law [delete as appropriate]. 

It's all in pursuit of happiness. Or at least an attempt to increase our sense of wellbeing during one of the bleakest months of the year. Setting resolutions provides a roadmap to a better future!

If we are to believe the American psychologist Martin Seligman, there are five elements that contribute to our sense of wellbeing. So aside from resolutions, we should also be thinking about:

• Positive emotion (life satisfaction, positive thinking)
• Engagement (being absorbed in something to the point of losing self-consciousness)
• Relationships (enjoying and constructively building relationships with other people)
• Meaning (having a purpose in life, belonging to something that is bigger than yourself)
• Accomplishment (achieving goals)

Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was asked to help develop a program to train the US Army in positive psychology. The goal was to make one million US soldiers more resilient to psychological trauma, at a time when the army was experiencing nearly a decade of protracted conflict. As a result, positive psychology is taught and measured throughout the US Army.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Simon Weston, a British veteran of the 1982 Falklands War. Weston, a Welsh Guardsman, suffered severe burns when his ship Sir Galahad was bombed by an Argentine plane. For 23 years afterwards, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which took the form of vivid nightmares, panic attacks and broken sleep. He even contemplated suicide.

After a slow and difficult recovery, Weston has become a motivational speaker, encouraging people to take control of their own lives. He is a classic example of someone who finally achieved post-traumatic growth. "What does not kill me, makes me stronger," the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, once said.

Of course ordinary people like you and me are unlikely to experience the horrors of war. Our combatants are more often depression, divorce, bereavement, or on a more modest scale, relationship issues and job dissatisfaction. Weston believes that we have to accept our situation and turn it to our advantage. It is all about having a positive mental attitude.

Who knows if this or Seligman's brand of positive psychology work - the US Army is still evaluating the success of its training program - but I am interested enough to put them to the test. So here it is: 2013, the year of engagement, positive emotion and accomplishment (hopefully). I guess it beats enrolling for boot camp or attempting to shed half a stone.


Click here to watch Martin Seligman deliver a lecture on the PERMA elements of wellbeing to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. I would like to thank Jamie Reed, an executive coach and author, for introducing me to Martin Seligman's work. 

Emma Clark Lam is the author of A Sister for Margot