Who Do You Want To Be When You Fucking Grow Up?

Two French Women and a Scottish Spell

Dear nerds¹,

I'm deep in Amy Sherman-Palladino's new show Étoile, having the most delightful fantasy with two fictional French women and avoiding revision 5 of my novel. (I will watch and love anything Amy writes - woman crush xo)

There's Geneviève, played by the amazing Charlotte Gainsbourg's, always kicking off torturous heels, confident in who she is, doing what needs to be done with a smile, or a scream, but always a dash of kindness.

There's Bruna, fabulous Marie Berto, a gruff French mother with killer red glasses. She’s built routines for the life she wants, knows everyone in her neighborhood, and spends hours tinkering in her workshop, fixing/creating art exactly how she wants.

I want to be both of them.

Is that greedy? Or is that actually the point?

They're both confident. They both know what brings them pleasure. I watched Charlotte kick off those stupid shoes, yet again, and wondered: When did I last ask myself who I want to be when I fucking grow up?

Not who I should be. Not who everyone expects me to be. Who I actually want to become.

The Scotland Spell

Étoile is gorgeously shot in Paris. Watching it stirred up a shitstorm of feelings about travel (I’m killing the planet) and place (should I go to Paris again? This time not as a naïve 20-year-old who gets sexually assaulted), and the stories we tell ourselves about where we can go. (No, no, head off to your golf and yes, I’ll ferry you back and forth to pottery class. I’ll be here gagging while I clean the dishwasher with vinegar.)

Motherly guilt aside, I'm focused on my adventure spell: A research trip to Scotland with one of my oldest girlfriends! WEEEEE!!!

I'm planning for book two in my Thread Traveler series, and our heroine (this gal) needs some inspiration. We’re visiting the Museum of Magic, Fortune-telling & Witchcraft to take a tour of Edinburgh - witchy vibes forever. Also planned a day trip to visit Lilias Adie's underwater grave, plus other things like books, afternoon tea and city strolling.

Then we’re off to walk the Rob Roy Way - for my honor! Here's where I feel like I've finally cracked the code for travelling: someone else moves my suitcase from pub to pub while I carry a day pack and walk 7-10 km through the Scottish countryside. Beautiful lunch somewhere in the middle, lovely bed to sleep in at night. FUCKING GENIUS!

I think I've discovered the spell for all future holidays.

This trip incorporates everything I love: moderate walking, beautiful scenery, time for quiet thinking, time to chat with a bestie, good food, and a clean, comfortable place to sleep.

The cream on top is a few days in Glasgow, which I suspect is going to be my city, filled with loads of independent artists. I'm stupidly excited.

The Real Magic: Permission to Want What You Want

I've been so busy managing everyone else's expectations for the last 1,000 years, in mum time, building the family, the house, the pets, the playdates, the garden, the hair from the drains, that I forgot to check in with who I actually want to become.

Bruna with her red glasses and her mysterious workshop projects? She follows her curiosity without explaining herself to anyone. She's cast the spell of not giving a shit about other people's opinions about her art, her routines, her choices.

Charlotte's character kicking off those painful shoes? She's done performing comfort for other people; heel-kicking is pure practical magic – a minor rebellion, "I'm not doing this anymore."

Both of them living what I'm learning.

The Perimenopause Plot Twist

Maybe this is what our forties and fifties are actually for – not the slow decline the patriarchy tells us is coming, but this beautiful, rebellious awakening to who we've been becoming all along.

What if this transition isn't about losing anything, but about finally having permission to want what we want?

The Scotland trip isn't just research for book two. It's research for who I want to be in my sequel. It’s the kind of practical wisdom nobody teaches you in your twenties. Why is there no fucking class that teaches you to cast a spell to design your life around what feeds you, instead of what looks good to everyone else.

The magic isn't having the right answer. It's in giving yourself fucking permission to ask the right question.

With love and anticipatory waves of panic and excitement for Scotland,
Annabel xxoo

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P.S. I’m taking a fucking break so see you in three weeks. No laptop ah…oh wait, madly finishing my revision on the flight from Victoria to Edinburgh, but then I swear, no laptop!

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1. I’m using nerds in the best possible way. Nerdship: How we love a thing with such veracity that we annoy others, and then one magical day we find other people who feel the same way about the thing we love. That is nerdship.