I have a draft about my personal response to a new television show that is supposedly objectively mediocre but, you know what, it spoke to me. I watched a few episodes and one of the narratives cooled the ashes. Or warmed them up. Depends on how you like ashes. I saw a journey - I once read that was Anna Wintour’s least favourite word - unfold and while my little day-to-day-month-to-month gambit dwarves in comparison, I was comforted. There was mess, the kind of selfishness that tastes like survival, bad habits, bad manners, complications.
But the thing about personal-public responses and talking about seeing yourself in a distant reflection is the unveiling of the self. You share, you give away, you wave a flag, you might as well be asking for the lifebuoy or banging the door shut.
It’s not private phones away territory like when you’re two glasses of wine in with a gang of women and the filth rolls out. When you say “this character on the precipice drummed an echo to my very bones”, you’re saying a lot more than you maybe want to be heard.
There are certain things in life for which you need the lace curtains. Make sure you take them off for a regular wash though. They trap dust.
People still have “a RT is not an endorsement” in their Twitter bio, but maybe a RT is a signal, morse code tapped out with your manicure or heeled boot. The act of sharing personal essays on topics such as infertility, workplace bullying, mental health policies, and medical paternalism may be a way of writing in homemade invisible ink. Or maybe they just found the article of interest. You might never know. Most times, it isn’t your right to know. Sometimes your acknowledgement could mean the world.
So instead, some of my shallow reactions to recently consumed art: the new Nancy Drew is addictive because it has a ghost and Nancy tearing into her father every five minutes, I bawled my eyes out reading the romance novel Texas Glory about an arranged marriage set on a ranch in Texas, the National Gallery of Ireland has a photography exhibition on the third floor and every item is a saga prompt, Carson McHone will calm you down.