Who Do You Think You Are?
On big skies and staying small
Hello friends,
Welcome back again this week to Notes from Saving the World.
Thank you for being here and for being a travel companion, on this online creative journey.
The sky in Scotland is vaster than the sky in the rest of the world.
… I am not sure if this is geographically true but I do know when I lived in London and took the train North, the moment we crossed the border, the sky would open up, the clouds would expand and the world would feel free and full of possibility.
This changed as soon as I crossed the Clyde and hit Glasgow Central Station, a place I would be unlikely to leave without at least one passerby hurling an insult at me. In return, my reflex would kick in to reply something defensive but also jovial, and only then, I would feel at home.
The greatness of the sky and some wanker ready to haul me back down to earth.
Don’t get above yourself. Don’t worry, I already know that one.
When I was 24 and came back to Glasgow for holidays I wouldn’t tell anyone where I lived.
I had worked for two years in Luxembourg at the European Court - fancy - and then got a job with the Luxembourg government working in Nicaragua - Nicaraaaguraa - where’s that? - mainly obtained by leveraging my degree, language skills, persistence and a bit of luck.
I didn’t know anyone else from home who worked abroad. This was before Instagram and if I told anyone about Luxembourg or Nicaragua I felt so incredibly uncomfortable, because I knew, down to my bones, that I had not stayed in my place. Not even slightly. And telling people seemed to evoke not only their discomfort and negative reaction, but also my own discomfort at having been so audacious. So I fumbled a vague, fake answer like, I’ve just been away or tried to find a way to say nothing at all.
It took years and confidence-building to undo that programming. Don’t get above yourself. It still sometimes hits me, that playing down for the crowd, not taking up too much space, trying to not be too good at anything, so as to not make others uncomfortable, because doing that would have attracted attention at school. And it was not the good sort of attention. My body still knows to divert quickly away from being seen to succeed or know too much about anything.
In a strange way, all my ‘fancy’ jobs around the world brought me closer to home. They unwound my protections and pretences. They beat me up just like the kids did at school. They left me not only with new wounds but with the ones I carried all along painfully exposed.
They left me - no longer feeling pretentious, too lucky or above myself. They left me as I was. Vulnerable and without pretence, realising I had never really gone that far at all.
Who was I to think I would ever get above myself? That I would ever surpass the inherited trauma? That I could just smooth over it and speed into success.
No, at some point you reckon with yourself. At some point, you are both so far from where you came from, while also simultaneously wandering that cold playground hoping no one will pick on you today.
Realising that even with the undoing, the persistence, even with the wins, the childhood lessons only soften, heal and diminish in size, the memories never fully leave you.
And that Glasgow education seems strange to me now. Because we beat up our own.
And if my time out on the world taught me anything, it is that there are others who could do with our furious accountability.
There are people with real power who could do with our reckoning.
Inspiration
A few other Scottish writers to explore:
Scottish Poet Kathleen Jamie’s poem, the Queen of Sheba explores this topic beautifully.
Scottish writer
writes her memoir and life stories from Glasgow., took us on a tour of some great Scottish poems a few months ago, worth checking out.
Tell me
I know this type of thinking isn’t unique to Scotland. What did your culture or country teach you about staying small?
Which Scottish writers would you recommend?
Loving the rambling Francesca. What a great story and interesting that not having a home home kind of freed you up from some of this thinking.
Spain must be great place to have your roots. I was actually just googling how much is property in Sevilla last night 🙂😂🌻
My trick is to not tell my family I write online… not sure that is good methodology but it lets me feel more free to express myself. I hope your mum reconciles with your perspective in time.
This is so true, the not wanting to draw attention for having it too good, the feeling you have to shy away from things that, when you think about it clearly, you see you are proud of and fought hard for and make your life - and you - what you are. It is a hard lesson to unlearn, especially for women I think. And I think often a recurring challenge….